West Bengal units offer Rs 1,000 phone

GeePee Infotech and Xenitis Telecommunications, two medium-sized, privately-held companies in Kolkata, have launched the country’s cheapest GSM handsets at less than Rs 1,000.

Two small and medium mobile handset manufacturing companies in West Bengal are redefining the price war in the GSM cell phone market by introducing the country’s cheapest mobile handsets. At less than Rs 1,000, these handsets offer features like colour display, audio and video players. The product is competing against giants like Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, and others.

GeePee Infotech and Xenitis Telecommunications, two medium-sized, privately-held companies in Kolkata, with close to five years in business, have launched the country’s cheapest GSM handsets at less than Rs 1,000.

Currently, only CDMA phones are priced below Rs 1,000 and are bundled with connections. The black-and-white GSM phones offered by Vodafone Magic Box are also bundled with connections and cost Rs 1,199.

“It is not impossible. All one has to do is source and design components accordingly and keep reasonable profit margins,” asserted Santanu Ghosh, CMD, Xenitis Group.

“All it takes is backward integration and a focus on volume manufacturing. Accordingly, we designed and sourced components for the handsets. The products are taken on contract manufacturing as well for sale under our own brand name,” added Ghosh.

To begin with, GeePee has launched its GSM handsets at Rs 994. These will be available without a bundling offer.

According to Bijay Agarwal, MD, GeePee Infotech Pvt Ltd: “The phone has a colour display, audio and video players. We are manufacturing the phones in Shenzhen, China. We will begin by launching the phone in the Eastern and the NorthEastern regions.”

GeePee is in talks with various GSM operators to sell the phone through bundled offers, and expects to sell 50,000-75,000 of these handsets per month. The company is also reworking its proposal to set up a component supply unit with a foreign partner. Initially, the project will cover one-lakh-square-foot space and involve an investment of Rs 100 crore and employ around 1,500 workers.

The company is now planning to set up a telecom special economic zone along with a component facility at higher investment.

By this year, GeePee plans to introduce its phones in Bangladesh. Xenitis Telecommunications, on its part, has launched what it calls ‘people’s mobile’ GSM handsets at Rs 499. The other four models are priced between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000.

These mobile handsets are targeted at entry-level users and are expected to significantly increase mobile penetration in rural Bengal.

The models will be available in the market by the year-end. Ghosh adds: “Our aim is to revolutionise the mobile handset market by introducing affordable handsets with all key features. We hope to increase mobile penetration in the country with our affordable handsets.

We are already getting good response from handset retailers due to the low price and extra features. We also have plans to come up with improved features including dual SIM card in the next phase. We have floated a new company Xenitis Telecommunications for our venture in mobile handset manufacturing.”

Xenitis has already bagged the order for supplying 1, 60,000 mobile handsets per month. Around 50,000 of these will be exported to Dubai and West Asia.