Coolpad aiming to expand its reach in Tier 3 and 4 cities

After hitting one million sale unit mark in the last six months, Coolpad aims to sale three million units by the end of 2019. The handset maker finds massive growth potential in the Indian smartphone market. With a customer centric strategy, Coolpad offers best smartphones in a very attractive price range. In a chat with VARINDIA, Fisher Yuan, CEO, Coolpad India opens up his heart out about the smartphone market, strategy, channel partners and roadmap.

Fisher believes that India has the biggest market for smartphones after the US.  According to him India market comprises of 60% feature phone users. As the government continues to push the ‘Digital India’ movement, these feature phone users are very likely to switch to smartphones and this is going to be a very lucrative opportunity for smartphone brands in the country.

Further he acknowledges, “Data usage in India is highest across the globe. As data becomes cheaper and more accessible, a major chunk of Indians will switch to smartphones to get the best mobile internet experience. Therefore, it is safe to say that India has immense growth potential for the Coolpad brand which offers premium smartphones at attractive prices.”

Target Verticals
With a dedicated offline team Coolpad is mainly focused on tapping the tier 3 and 4 regions. Fisher remarks, “We have around 30 state distributors and 500 market distributors that are constantly striving to expand our footprint in tier 2 and 3 cities. Additionally, after the government’s new e-commerce policies, the online channel is wide open for brands such as ours. All major pin codes, across all socio-economic sectors, are now accessible for online channels. Leveraging this opportunity, we will further expand our reach across tier 3 and 4 cities.”

Roadmap
Offering the best smartphone experience in a very attractive price range is part of Coolpad’s customer- centric strategy. Fisher claims, “Coolpad was the first brand in India to offer premium smartphones in the below 10K segment. Our roadmap is quite clear, in the next six months, we will roll out several new models with the best specifications at prices that are perfectly suited to the price-sensitive Indian market. “

Cool 3 Plus, the latest offering from Coolpad comes with a 5.7’’ Dewdrop screen, 3 GB RAM and MediaTek 6761 Helio A22 processor. The company claims that no other brand in India offers such cutting-edge specifications in the same price range . Fisher perceives this clear-cut edge over all their competitors in terms of pricing and specifications, is increasing the acceptability of Coolpad as brand.

“We are offering best-in-class devices in a very attractive price range, which truly sets us apart from others. We will continue to deliver the best combination of features and specifications at very attractive prices. Further, after the successful launch of Cool 3 Plus, we will be launching six new smartphones by the end of July 2019.  We will also have 20,000 retail stores by the end of 2019 to increase our offline footprint,” he says.

Coolpad will focus on the INR 6K – 10K segment, in order to capture the maximum market share. Fisher Yuan promises to continue innovating their key features such as the Dewdrop display, large memory, impressive battery backup, and premium security features such as fingerprint and face unlock.

Go-to-market strategy
To create a holistic go-to-market strategy, Coolpad is taking a 360-degree marketing approach. Fisher comments, “We are leveraging digital marketing to reach the online audience in an effective manner. Since a major chunk of our audience is presently offline, we are also investing in offline marketing. This will include OOH marketing, stock merchandising, etc. In the next 6 months, we will also be launching a TVC campaign to reach out to a wider audience across the nation.”

Support Centres
With 500 service centres across the country Coolpad is providing an extensive after-sale support.

“We are an extremely customer-centric brand with the convenience of our customers at the heart of all our endeavours. In case a customer is not satisfied with our smartphone, we have a no-questions-asked, seven day replacement policy in place. One can simply visit the service centre and get a replacement. In rare cases, if there is no service centre in or around a particular region, we have several alternate channels such as social media, e-mail and call-centres through which our customers can get in touch with us. We are always ready to support our customers, and if required, someone from the service team reaches out to the customer and solves the issues in a hassle-free manner,” highlights Fisher.