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Kochi , Sept. 8

BHARTI Teletech, manufacturers of Beetel Phones, has charted a road map for continued leadership in Kerala as the company had achieved a 120 per cent growth in sales this August, over the corresponding month of the previous year.

The company had announced a high growth strategy for continued dominance in the telephone instruments markets in the State, including the launch of a wide range of feature rich phones and continued focus on R&D, Mr Pawan Kapur, Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Teletech said at a press conference here on Saturday.

Claiming that the company had sold around 10,000 telephone sets in the month of August in the State, he said these numbers are unprecedented and has taken the share of Beetel brand of phones in the State to more than 45 per cent. In view of this sales growth, it had set a target of 15,000 pieces in a month till December 31. Kerala is number three in tele-density in the country.

Mr Kapur, who was here in connection with the unveiling of the new range of Beetel Phones, said that Bharti Teletech is the largest manufacturer of telephone sets in the world outside China.

The company currently exports to over 25 countries including USA, East Europe, West Asia and South Asia. This year, the exports had doubled to constitute about 10 per cent of total production against 5 per cent last year.

"We are the first telephone instruments manufacturer in India to ship 20 million phones and are targeting the sale of the next 10 million phones by 2005. This is an achievable target in view of the growth in the Indian telephone market and the company's leadership position in all the three segments of the domestic telephone market such as tender market, open retail market and the nascent basic service providers market," he said.

Despite the competition from China, Mr Kapur said the company had been able to play a dominant role in the country with a market share of 30 per cent in both the open retail and the tender market segments comprising purchases of BSNL and MTNL. It has also the distinction of being the only domestic company to have indigenously designed and manufactured caller line identification with speaker functions.

The company is all set to manufacture landline phones with SMS facility as BSNL had placed a tender with Bharti for manufacturing two lakh such phones. "We are ready with the technology for the production of such phones. India will become the 12th country in the world to provide SMS in landline," he added.

Referring to manufacture of mobile phones, Mr Kapur said the company is currently doing a market study. As the cost input is high in manufacturing such GSM phones, a decision to enter the market will be taken only after a market survey.

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