Two and a half years after it entered the country, Chinese handset-maker Gionee has finally decided to take the online sales route.
According to Arvind Vohra, Country Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Gionee India, the company has firmed up its e-commerce strategy. The online foray is expected to happen over the next 30-45 days.
It is currently in talks with all the major e-commerce platforms that include Snapdeal and Amazon.
“We will start selling our handsets online. May be over the next month and a half it will happen,” he told
Online and offline sales (i.e. sales through brick-and-mortar stores) will co-exist with price parity being maintained between the two channels.
Vohra said with the online foray, the company will look to introduce one model a month.
The company is targeting to clock sales of six million devices this year, up from 4 millions last year.
Conscious decisionAmongst the first Chinese handset vendors to enter the country (after Lenovo), Gionee had consciously stayed away from online sales. It had started by directly introducing its devices in the fiercely competitive mid-range market (upwards of ₹15,000).
According to sources, the main reason that the company had stayed away from the online channel was the deep discounting strategy followed by e-tailers.
Gionee, Vohra said, has decided to go online once their pricing was respected. “Online, offline, large format retails are all channels. You first need to build a strong brand, the more channels only means availability is easy. I have no personal reason not to go online, as long as they respect our pricing,” he said.
Incidentally, the company had earlier drawn up a strategy – to prevent deep discounting by e-tailers – whereby consumers who got handsets online did not get the one-year warranty.
Meanwhile, it has also tied up with large format stores such as The Mobile Store, Croma and Spice for sales.
Contract manufacturingThe company is also looking to start manufacturing (assembling) of its devices here in India before Diwali this year.
While it has committed to an investment of ₹300 crore ($50 million) over a three-year period, it is yet to take a call on the place where the assembly unit will come up.
“We are exploring two to three places. In all likelihood, it will be a contract manufacturing facility,” Vohra said. According to him, Gionee will also look to foray into smart devices, including wearables, by this fiscal-end.