How Indian handset cos have lost their status as feisty challengers to MNCs

Chinese brands have been aggressive in terms of their device launches and capturing key marketing trends to offer well-designed products at competitive price points with clever marketing

In mid-2016, Keshav Bansal, then 24 and a director at India’s third-largest smartphone firm Intex Technologies, was gung-ho about the firm’s future. Sitting in his luxurious family residence in Delhi’s Sainik Farms, Bansal was revealing his plans on taking the company public soon. Also in focus was his effort to make his newly acquired franchise rights for the Indian Premier League team Gujarat Lions finally join “the big league”.

Bansal, freshly returned from the UK’s Alliance Manchester Business School, was yet to anticipate the roadblocks to his ambitions. Close to three years later, both his dreams, of taking Intex public and