Tambo aims to sell 12 mn handsets, garner Rs 1,500 cr revenue this yr

Tambo, the latest entrant in the competitive Indian handset market, has launched a line of smartphones and feature phones and aims to clock a revenue of Rs 1,500 crore this year.

The company has launched six feature and three smart phones (priced between Rs 600-7,000) and aims to sell 12 million units this year.

"If you look at the smartphone category in the sub-Rs 7,000 range, it forms a big chunk of the market. However, there are not many brands present in this segment and that is a space that we want to fill," Tambo Chief Executive Officer Sudhir Kumar told PTI.

He added that this year, the company is targeting sales of 12 million units with feature phones accounting for 80 per cent share.

"In our maiden year, we are aiming for revenue of Rs 1,500 crore... As the year progresses, we will launch five more smartphones and a couple of feature phones as well," he said.

Kumar said the company would bring in features like face unlock and fingerprint sensor -- currently available with mid-priced phones by competitors -- on its range of entry-level smartphones.

"We want to offer customers the best features at affordable prices," he added.

Besides, the company is looking at devices that can "fill the space between feature and entry-level smartphones (Rs 2,000-3,500)".

The company's handsets are being manufactured through V-Sun at the latter's facility in Noida.

Tambo is looking at setting up its own assembly unit in Greater Noida in the coming months, Kumar said.

India, which is witnessing fierce competition among players, is also one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets globally. According to research firm IDC, about 288 million mobile phones were shipped in India in 2017, which translates into an annual growth of close to 16 per cent. Feature phone shipment stood at 164 million units.

In the October-December 2017 quarter, JioPhone led the feature phone quarter with 24.1 per cent market share, followed by Samsung (14.5 per cent share), Transsion (9.7 per cent), Micromax (8.7 per cent) and Lava (6.5 per cent share).

For smartphones category, Samsung occupied the top spot followed by Xiaomi, Vivo, Lenovo and Oppo.