Micromax Informatics is India’s biggest mobile handset seller. Started less than 3 years ago, Micromax has garnered a 4.1% market share (by revenue) and a revenue of Rs 1,600 cr last year in the US $ 6.7 billion Indian handset market. Today it is selling more than 1 million phones per month and heads a group of domestic companies like Karbonn, Spice, Zen, Videocon, Lava etc.
Micromax doesn’t seem contented with taking the normal route. It has plans of launching an IPO to raise about 150 million dollars. The major part of the capital would be used to set up a new manufacturing plant in India and the rest in expansion into markets and other activities.
As we can recall sometime back, Indian Government had announced that it put restrictions on selling Chinese Manufactured phones in India. Probably the reason why Micromax is planning to setup its own manufacturing unit locally. But it remains to be seen whether they will be able to provide the same cost advantages in India.
The have also recently sold less than 10 percent stake to three US-based private equity investors for a total of about two billion rupees (44 million dollars).
But this is not all… Micromax has gone ahead and tied up with Modu Ltd. (A mobile company from Israel) to produce the world’s light touch phone (Modu T) weighing at just 55 grams.
Its features include: –
- 2.2 inch touch screen
- Memory card (2GB) extendable upto 32 GB
- Other usual features like IM, Social networks, Music Player etc
Another special feature of the phone is the two jackets which come with it and when they are connected, they add new features to the phone. The camerafy jacket converts the phone into a 5MP camera while the sportfy jacket can be used while while running / jogging etc to measure number of km etc.
Priced at Rs 12,500, this is an attempt by Micromax to target the aspirational and high end users who are interested in new gadgets. It also shows a change of strategy from Micromax to produce phones even in the high end segment and basically try to cover all the segments with their models.
One thing for sure, Foreign Multinationals who are already under pressure from local Indian mobile handset brands, have a tough job ahead in protecting their turf !
Thoughts ?