Zen Mobiles bets big on Indian mobile market

Buoyed by the rapidly expanding market for mobile handsets in the country, Zen Mobiles Ltd, a part of the New Delhi-based Teleecare Group, aims to touch a sales figure of 10 lakh units per month by December this year.

Presently, Zen Mobiles sells 2.25 lakh mobile handsets per month across the country. The spurt in the company's sales is set to come on the back of growing number of mobile phone connections propelled by declining mobile tariff, rise in per capita income and the foray of new mobile handsets with multimedia features.

Deepesh Gupta, managing director, Zen Mobiles said, “We expect our sales to jump from 2.25 lakh units per month to 10 lakh units by the end of December this year. The company is looking at a pan-India distributor network of over 2000 by then.”

He said, the market for mobile handsets in the country which currently stands at 80 lakh units per month is set to reach one crore units per month over the next 3-4 months.

Nokia is the market leader in the mobile handset space with sales of 45-50 lakh units per month followed by Samsung at around 25 lakh units.

The demand is the strongest for the mid-range mobile handsets which is growing at the rate of around 25 per cent.

Gupta pointed out that the established players in the mobile handset market have not penetrated in a big way into the interior pockets of the country.

“These interior pockets have a huge potential for growth and our strategy is to make deep inroads into such markets. We are aiming to find the right distributor in the interior pockets who can offer our value for money products to the people”, he added.

To help push sales, Zen Mobiles has drawn up a plan to roll out at least two new models of mobile handsets every month. Besides offering the standard features, these models would offer longer battery back-up periods.

The firms has also decided to set up 20 company owned exclusive outlets in major cities of the country in the second half of this calendar year. Apart from strengthening the brand positioning of Zen Mobiles, these outlets are expected to give a better retail experience to the customers.

Asked if the company would also launch 3G enabled handsets, Gupta said, “The 3G technology is still at an introductory phase in the country but we are gearing up to offer 3G enabled handsets. The 3G handsets would not drive volumes growth for the company as they would account for hardly five per cent of our overall sales.”

Zen Mobiles which has a tie-up with Tata Indicom is also negotiating with a couple of other telecom service providers for similar collaborations.

The Zen Mobile phone range has an extensive array of products which caters to various segments in the price band of Rs 1,800-Rs 6,000.