UniverCell to roll out 150 retail stores

Focusing more on the smartphone growth, UniverCell Telecommunications, a Chennai-based mobile retail chain, is charting out a pan-India expansion, which would see it open 150 company-owned, ‘buy-off-the-shelf’ format stores by the end of the next financial year, said founder and managing director B Sathish Babu.

“Keeping in view the uptick in demand for smartphones, we are planning to expand aggressively by opening 50 company-owned stores during the current financial year, and add 100 more by the end of the next financial year,” he told Business Standard.

Each of the proposed stores, with an average carpet area of 500 sft, would entail an investment of Rs 10 lakh. The 15-year-old company operates 450 outlets across Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Mumbai.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), a US-based market research, analysis and advisory firm, global shipments of smart-connected devices like tablets and smartphones are expected to hit the 1.7-billion mark in 2014.  Of this, 60 per cent would be shipped to BRIC nation. According to German research institute GfK, almost 18 per cent of the phones sold in India are smartphones. The share of smartphone sales at UniverCell is 60 per cent, as against 30 per cent last year.

It was also planning to tread the franchisee route, with the first bunch of 14 stores already being tried and tested in Tier-III towns (with a population of less than 100,000) in TN and the Andamans. Babu said a recruitment drive was on to open 100 franchisees each in AP and Karnataka Jan-Feb 2014.

It garnered revenues of Rs 5 crore a month from its website as well as through tie-ups with Amazon and Snapdeal. “UniverCell is forging an alliance with e-commerce firm Flipkart for inventory and delivery management of smartphones  next week,”  Babu said.