The MobileStore to launch own label

The Essar group’s telecom retailing company, The MobileStore, is close to launching its private label, ‘Ray’, with an initial portfolio of four handsets. The company, sourcing handsets from Chinese vendors, is looking at rolling out at least 40 models by the end of the current financial year.

“The idea came from the fact that a lot of phones are being imported into the country without IMEI numbers or assurance of quality. We wanted to provide value to our customers, and without compromising on quality,” The MobileStore CEO and Director Rajiv Agarwal told Business Standard today.

He says the handsets will be “competitively priced”. The MobileStore was looking at garnering at least 50 per cent of the organised handset market, he added.

Independent studies put annual handset sales at 110 million, of which the organised market is around 13 per cent. Spice Mobile and Reliance Communications are the only two companies to have launched private labels.

The MobileStore is spending around Rs 50 crore for the launch.

The handsets would be sold at its 1,350 outlets and other telecom retailing points. The plan is to raise the number of outlets to around 2,000 by the end of this year.

The company’s lowest priced model is the RAY M20, priced at Rs 2,199, which has an MP3 player, FM radio, and expandable memory. It has also launched dual-SIM touch screen phones (Ray M31 and Ray T60) and a 3MP camera phone, Ray T65.