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Taiwan-headquartered BenQ is set to re-enter India’s burgeoning market for smartphones with devices that would be compatible with 4G, that is fourth generation mobile technology.
The company, which is better known for manufacturing LCD monitors and projectors, will introduce smartphones priced between $100 and $250 dollars over the next six months, said Rajeev Singh, Country Head at BenQ India.
“Six months ago, BenQ unveiled its range of smartphones. We have introduced them in Taiwan, Australia and Malaysia. Now, we are looking at the Indian market,” Singh told BusinessLine at a meeting in Mumbai.
Bad times BenQ was once the sixth largest phone maker in terms of market share in the world. In a bid to expand its business, it bought the cell phone unit of Siemens in 2005. However, the deal did not pan out as expected. After a string of failures, the firm nearly exited the phone market by 2007.
Recently, BenQ marked its re-entry into the global smartphone arena with two new smartphone models – the BenQ A3 and BenQ F3 – priced at 7990 Taiwanese Dollars (₹16,850 approximately), and 5,990 Taiwanese Dollars (₹12,600 approximately) respectively.
Shortage of affordable devices to access 4G services is being seen as one of the primary reasons for many telecom operators not rolling out such services in the country. It is believed that consumers may get about 10-12 times more browsing speed on 4G-enabled mobile phones in comparison to the average speed they get on 3G. Singh believes that the 4G-Long Term Evolution (LTE) ecosystem in India would be ready by the year-end, despite the initial hiccups.
4G in India infra “Setting up a new network is always a very long drawn process. I believe that 4G infrastructure will be ready over the next six months in tier-I cities,” he added.
BenQ India has an internal target of growing at over 20 per cent on an annual basis. The company is on track to achieve revenue of ₹300 crore in the current year as against ₹250 crore in 2013, Singh said. (BenQ follows a January-to-December accounting calendar.)
The company has a market share of 25 per cent in projectors and controls about five per cent of the LCD display space.
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