Hyve launches 2 smartphones, eyes 1 mn sales in 1st year

Marking its foray into the country's highly competitive smartphone segment, homegrown start-up Hyve Mobility today launched two handsets and expects to sell 1 million handsets in the very first year on the back of its after-sales service.
The company today unveiled two smartphones - Buzz and Storm.
Buzz priced at Rs 13,999 comes with two year warranty and is 4G VoLTE enabled while Storm is priced at Rs 8,499 with one year warranty. These phones will start selling from June 22 on Hyve's website as well as through Amazon and Flipkart.
Buzz comes with 5.5 inch high definition display, 3GB Ram, 48 GB internal memory and external expandable up to 144 GB, 2500 mAh battery. Storm has a 5 inch HD display, 2000 mAH battery, 2GB Ram, 16GB internal memory and up to 80 GB external storage option. Both devices have 5 megapixel(MP) front camera and 13 MP rear camera.

"After-sales service is going be to a big differentiator for Hyve in market. To start with, we are providing pick and drop service for our smartphones across all 4,200 pin codes in the country and complimentary damage insurance," Hyve co-founder and CEO Sharad Mehrotra said.
The pick and drop facility will be complimentary during warranty period of smartphones and Hyve will later decide on service for out-of-warranty phones.

Mehrotra, former head of Apple India's enterprise business, said that Hyve will see development of ecosystem and decide on pick and drop service accordingly.
Hyve has introduced its biometric-based Touch2Call patent technology in the Buzz smartphone by which a person can make a call by just touching a back side button with a finger.

"We are optimising Touch2Call further to leverage it for panic button feature as Touch2Help. This feature will be launched by August. Touch2Help will allow phone to send out SMS alerts to numbers fed in panic button when touched with finger linked to it," Mehrotra said.
Buzz users at present can link their fingerprint with a contact in their phone. The smartphone will automatically trigger a call to the number when a button at the back is touched with a finger linked to the contact.
Mehrotra said that company will launch only limited products and will focus on customer service.
"Even after warranty period, we will look at customer pain points and unlike other brands Hyve will not price its components almost close the price of a new phone. We want to win customer's loyalty. Once a Hyve customer should always remain a Hyve customer," Mehrotra said.

He said the company is also planning to launch smartphones in the Rs 25,000 category.