Chinese telecom giant ZTE has finally woken up to the potential of having its own branded phones in India. Though ZTE is the world’s fifth largest smartphone vendor, the company has always sold through operators in India.
While it has sold over 36 million devices through service providers, the company will now have an open market strategy. The company is now targeting $800 million revenues in the next year, of which $300 is expected to come from its devices vertical, which includes smartphones and data cards.
“India is a very complex market. We were very comfortable with the white label model and had great volumes. We did not want to invest our energies on marketing and could focus on innovations. Now we think that the market here has matured enough,” ZTE India CEO Xu Dejun told The Financial Express.
ZTE has been in India for over 13 years and is the backbone of many telecom service service providers.
The company is now in a test phase in India with six mass market models in the Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 price bracket. In the next phase the company will bring in models that have been localised for the peculiar requirements of the Indian market. “For instance, we have realised that most Indian smartphone users have two numbers. So our high-end models will be dual SIM offerings in India,” Xu Dejun added.
The company will gradually target 6,000 retails outlets which according to it accounts for 80 per cent of all smartphone sales. ZTE also opened its first experience zone in Gurgaon on Thursday.