Micromax rejigs management, ropes in Deepak Mehrotra as CEO

In a management rejig to strengthen its position in a highly competitive mobile handset market, homegrown handset maker Micromax has roped in Bharti Airtel Director Deepak Mehrotra as the CEO.

The company has also appointed officials from Sony Ericsson and HTC to push sales of its feature phones and smartphone divisions.

Mehrotra joins Micromax from telecom operator Bharti Airtel, where he served as Operations Director (Mobility Business).

Besides, the company has appointed Sony Ericsson's Khaja Muzaffarullah to head the feature phones division, while HTC's Ajay Sharma will look after the smartphone business.

"These are exciting times not only for the brand but for the industry as a whole. We are witnessing technology advancements every day and that further excites us at Micromax," Mehrotra told PTI.

India's mobile industry is growing at 12% and Micromax would like to drive the next phase of growth for the brand, he added.

Micromax had about 7% share in India, in terms of revenue in FY11, according to a CyberMedia study.

"We already have a strong presence in the feature phones segment and we are now aggressively looking to capture the smartphone market share as well. We will have two separate divisions for this, with two different team heads," Mehrotra said.

Muzaffarullah said, "We will strengthen our distribution across the country and work towards creating a robust network that brings us closer to the customer."

Sharma said Micromax is looking at gaining 10% of the market share at the earliest.

Micromax is also present in markets such as Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Brazil.