The Hindu Business Line : Mobile retailers continue hiring despite slowdown

Mumbai, Nov. 25 At a time when lay-off fears are beginning to haunt the Indian workforce, most domestic players in the growing mobile retail market have not switched off their hiring spree.

The retailers say that the economic slowdown has not had any significant impact on demand for mobile services.

While Future Axiom, a 50:50 joint venture between Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group and the West Asian mobile retail major Axiom Telecom, plans to take on board over 4,000 people to support its expansion plans by December 2009, the Essar Group-owned The Mobile Store had hired 1,500 fresh graduates in three months.

Says Mr Rajiv Agarwal, CEO, The Mobile Store, “As we have been on an expansion spree, hiring has become a necessity even in times of a slowdown.

“Today, we have 300 stores and as we keep expanding, we have to go in for fresh hiring for jobs across functions ranging from front-end operations to finance management at our stores.”

A few players, like Mobile NXT, are however going slow on fresh hiring.

“We hired about 50 people last quarters. But now we have decided to hold our expansion plans and hence we may not go in for fresh hiring,” Mr Vijay N. Menon, CEO of the company, said.

Future Axion is undaunted by the economic slowdown and plans to increase its manpower by 400 per cent within a year to support its $40 million expansion plans.

The plans include tripling its number of outlets to 1,500 by December 2009, apart from getting into innovative value-added services like setting up authorised mobile service centres and providing content on mobiles.

Expansion

“We plan to serve pan-India and operate in more than 58 cities through 1,500 stores and touch points by the end of 2009. We currently employ about 1,200 people and we plan to double our managerial staff and increase the retail staff by 4,000,” Mr Ashy Sehgal, CEO of Future Axiom, told Business Line.

The company was betting big on mobile retailing in India. “So far, we have not felt any impact of the economic slowdown. But perhaps if the trend continues, we may feel some impact. As of now it is difficult to say,” he points out.

Service Hubs

Two years down the line, the company intends to add a host of innovative value-added services, which at present Axiom offers in its markets. To start with, the company plans to open 20 to 25 authorised service centres for handsets in select cities. It has an authorised service centre in Delhi for Nokia handsets, where 25,000 handsets are serviced a month. “Our proposed service centres will be relatively smaller,” he pointed out.

Axiom is also the authorised distributor for different models in its markets, apart from providing content on handsets like wallpapers and games.

“We plan to introduce these and other services in the domestic market within the next two years,” Mr Sehgal said.

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