Lava International, one of the new entrants in India's burgeoning mobile handset space, is all set to invest $15 million (around Rs 67 crore) for expanding into overseas markets.

The Noida-headquartered company plans to expand in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nigeria over the next three years, Mr SN Rai, Co – Founder & Director, told Business Line .

“We do not want to just have a trading presence in these countries…going forward each country will be a separate business unit that will have responsibility for generating growth and profits in the country,” said Mr Rai.

Established in 2009, Lava today has four per cent market share in India with 25-30 active mobile handsets in the Indian domestic market. Recently, the company had said it was working on launching a tablet computer by the year-end.

Handset prices in India nosedived in the last few years thanks to the advent of new desi brands such as Karbonn, Pagaria, Intex, Olive, Videocon, Micromax, Lava and others. These handsets are, however, sourced from manufacturers in China or Taiwan.

Mr Rai, however, says that Lava does much more than sourcing from the east. “We do not just shop for handsets in China and come back…We have a full fledged R&D team in Bangalore which validates the design before it is approved for manufacturing in China,” said Mr Rai.

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