After being in the Indian market for almost four years, mobile phone maker Gionee has focussed on building brand awareness, customer experience and consumer satisfaction, rather than engaging in a price war.

As a result, the company’s turnover has grown multi-fold from ₹25 crore to ₹350 crore per month. On Monday, it launched its latest device S6s, priced at ₹17,999, which is a 4G and VoLTE device.

In an interview with BusinessLine , Arvind R Vohra, Managing Director and Country Chief Executive Officer, Gionee India, shares insights about the strategy. Excerpts:

Don’t you think the price of the S6s is high as compared to competitors?

We have to stop thinking about the pricing; and start looking at the value.

When we entered the market, we were pitted against domestic players. People said pricing should be lower than domestic players and the pecking order was – MNC, domestic and Chinese players, in that order, which has now changed.

It is now MNC, Chinese and then Indian players now. That has primarily happened because of the value of the product and the customer satisfaction.

Putting all the parts is different from putting value, and now the customer can see that.

So will your focus be more towards premium phones, not the price war?

The whole thing is about what a consumer wants. There are consumers who don’t care about battery, there are those who care about design, and some are motivated by what they can do with the phone.

We have already pre-booked 80,000 units of the S6s through our dealers’ network and not by any online channel. Consumer looks at the value of the product that comes out of it. The trade is through such dealers only.

So your focus is not around online markets?

Online, as I have always maintained, is a channel. We have an official partner like Amazon for the latest product. They have some clear agenda regarding brands and go along with our thinking too.

What are your manufacturing plans?

We have two factories, one in Sri City (Andhra Pradesh) with Foxconn, and another with Dixon in Noida (Uttar Pradesh). We are now planning for a third plant, which we will own. We are scouting for land in Northern India and have seen around 15 sites.

We will be investing ₹500 crore on this plant and by the time we churn out our first product from this plant, it would be 24 months. We are almost closing the land deal (most probably around Faridabad), but will depend on the pricing of the land.

What will be the plant’s capacity?

The capacity will be around 30 million (3 crore) handsets a year and this will act as an export hub for us. It will make sense because today we have China, then India and the Indian sub-continent (SAARC) and then we have markets like Nigeria. The kind of phones prevalent in these countries are very similar to India.

Are you happy with policies like Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND), which has led many companies to pay huge amount to companies like Ericsson on IPR?

The matter at this point in time is sub-judice. There will be a closure and till the matter is sub-judice nobody can claim either way.

What are your other expansion plans?

The organisation will be beefed up. We are now close to 200 people and will double this. And in terms of promoters (own staff in shops) in the shop, we have around 12,000 people and want to take it up to 15,000 in next few months.

By June next year, we will have 250 exclusive brand shops from 54 right now.

How about your plans on wearables or smart televisions?

We are currently focusing only on mobile phones. We have our wearables line-up already, but it is not commercialised yet, because I don’t think it is important right now.

In tomorrow’s environment, lot of governance will happen through smartphones, like banking/payments. It is becoming our visiting card/payment card/identity card. We will be ready with any product which is in mobility from R&D point, but commercialisation will depend upon customers.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW