Lava eyes 3 million handset sales in first year

Lava International, a telecom handset company promoted by three Indian professionals, is hoping to sell three million units in the first year of its launch.

The company has rolled out handsets priced between Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000 in north India and is now rolling them out in the east and south India with a clear focus on tier II towns and cities.

At a press conference in Kolkata, Sunil Bhalla, co-founder and director of Lava International said, “We are currently importing all handsets from China. Depending on the volume we manage to pick up here, we would like to set up our own handset manufacturing unit in India.”

“Our focus is on rural and tier II towns and cities. In these areas electricity is a problem and therefore our handsets are designed for 30-days standby battery. This, along with other features like FM, recording and 8 GB memory,” Bhalla added.

“Initially we will strengthen our retail reach and then also participate in rural ‘haats’ to create awareness in rural areas,” Bhalla said. Indian mobile phone handset market is estimated at around eight million per month.

“Our research shows that smaller cities are growing rapidly and we have decided to tap the growing demand in these markets along with the major metros. We plan to establish Lava as an affordable brand,” Bhalla further added.

According to Praveen Srivastava, sales and marketing head of Lava, “Kolkata in particular has always been one of the most lucrative markets for mobile phones. Lava is looking at capturing a major market share in Siliguri, Burdwan, Durgapur, Kharagpur, Darjeeling and Malda mobile handset market.”