InFocus: A long-term player in India

The Indian market is currently shifting towards 4G and it will continue to trend till next year. It was expected that, after the implementation of GST, online sales will climb down, but it remains a strong channel as it was before.

“In India, every month both in the feature and smartphone segment, one crore of feature phones and smartphones each get sold out. We continue to see the growth in the smartphone market next year. The Indian feature phone market will shift more towards 4G next, but it continues to be very strong in India till next year. Everybody was expecting that after GST, online sales will go down and everyone will prefer offline, but I do not think that is happening now. Online is being very strong and they are as strong as they were before implementation of GST. So, online will continue to be a strong channel along with offline. As a brand, we want to be present in both the spaces – online and offline,” said Piyush Puri, Vice-President, Sales & Marketing, InFocus Smartphone and Sharp.  

Strategy

India, a market with immense opportunities, is getting competitive every day with new handset vendors entering it. So to better position the brand, InFocus is all focussed to offer value-for- money products to the consumers.   

“The Indian market is becoming tough day by day. New brands are pouring into this market. So it is becoming very competitive. We are trying to position our brand very carefully in both online and offline space. In both the segments, we want to offer best of the value to the consumers unlike other brands who built up on the price, charge premium and they give benefit to the channel, retail partners, spend a lot on marketing and finally they take out the marketing cost to offer to customers. But when the product is available for consumers, the price goes up. Unlike these companies, we do not want to do it and straightaway want to give best-value products to the consumers,” says Piyush.    

Channel strategy

As India is a mass market, the retail presence of a company is very important for the consumers as they want to have a touch-and-feel experience. InFocus has a retail presence of 30,000 outlets to cater to the customers who want to have hands-on experience.   

“Currently, we are available in 30,000 retail outlets, these are not experience zones. Out of this, we have 350 Experience Zones where one can go and have an experience of the product, rest they keep the product and sell it. Depending upon the investment, we want to increase the number of experience zones. We will take the number to 500 by the end of this year and rest of the stores will be selling points where customers can go and buy,” explains Piyush. 

He further adds, “We will continue to build up our brand in online and the repel effect of online comes into offline also. So we continue to offer best-of-the-value products in online and keep on building on our offline structure also. We will not leave online space and continue to be an aggressive player in this segment.”    

Service Support

InFocus has tied up with Accel Frontline to provide a robust service support to its customers. As it is an important aspect for any brand, InFocus makes sure to have a service centre when they venture into distribution in new places.    

“For service support, we have tied up with Accel Frontline and currently we have 326 service centres in the country. It is covered around 240 cities. Accel has been supporting us. Wherever we are starting our distribution, we always start out service centres first and then only we go. By the end of this year, we are committed to open 500 service centres in India so that no consumer faces any problem in getting the service.

“We monitor the Turn Around Time (TAT). Now 70% of phones that come get closed in 48 hours, the rest 20% get closed in 72 hours and another 10% may take 7–10 days, which we are trying to reduce by opening more hubs,” states Piyush.     

Adding to it, he says, “In feature phones we have a policy of giving a 100 days replacement, though there are not much of issues in this segment. But still if any customer faces any problem within 100 days of buying then he can come to the retailer and can take a replacement.”    

Revenue Target and Investment Plans 

Talking about the revenue target and investment plans, Piyush reveals, “In terms of volume, this year we are targeting to sell six million phones in India. Out of that, we have already achieved close-to one million and the balance we are going to achieve.  This year we are going to invest $10 million in India.”  

Roadmap & Future Plans

InFocus has a focussed roadmap of three years. In these three years, the brand will concentrate on setting up its distribution, marketing, etc.  

 
“We have three years of roadmap. This year we have to set up our distribution, product and marketing team. Next year we would start investing in marketing, both at ground and over the air. In the third year, major investment will come in marketing.

In India, we are going to have InFocus and Sharp strategy and we are a long-term player in India. We will continue to invest in growing the market in India. Under the InFocus brand, we are going to offer the best-value products to the consumers starting from Rs.655 to Rs.999 in feature phones and in smartphone from Rs.4,599 to Rs.11,999. Then, we are going to launch our Sharp brand which will be more of a premium device. By December, we are going to launch this brand in India,” concludes Piyush.

Tags: InFocus, indian 4g market, gst, InFocus Smartphone, Channel strategy, Service Support, Turn Around Time, tat, Revenue Target and Investment Plans , Roadmap & Future Plans, varindia