iVOOMi wants to keep prices as a 'value proposition' for the brand

In a chat with VARINDIA, Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi India, discusses on the current Indian smartphone market, the company’s roadmap for 2018, besides sharing his thoughts on business expansion in future, new innovations and much more...   

As the Indian Smartphone market witnessed a tremendous growth last year, it is also expected to grow further in 2018 with a major traction in sales. Driven by high demand and upgrades, the market is likely to witness immense growth this year as well.  As a brand, iVOOMi also sees a huge potential in this market.  Talking to VARIndia, Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi speaks on how the past year has been a great one for the brand. He reveals that since its inception in the Indian market, they had a consistent growth of 2x, and is prepared to capture 3-4% of the Indian Smartphone market in 2018.

Outlook on the Indian market …..
When asked to speak on the current market scenario, Ashwin says, “There is a continuous need for high performance devices with quality, which the country is adapting to at a very fast pace and we have an exciting roadmap on the same.”

He further adds, “The present development in the market makes this the best time to manufacture and design our devices locally and it will in fact, enable us to deliver products that are more suitable and satisfactory for the Indian market. This will ensure better logistics and supply chain management basis the market. Once we start the designing of our products within India, it will help in lowering of production costs and improvement in the quality of the products and enable us to deliver better devices at value prices.”

Strategy to strengthen…
According to Ashwin the two biggest challenges in the current business environment are the changing market dynamics and developing the ecosystem for manufacturing in India.

Mentioning about the company’s future roadmap, he further states, “The brand also expects 2018 to be beneficial for the brand. 2018 will mark the next phase for us; we have huge plans in terms of innovative products, and innovative sales models to reach our consumers, better after-sales services and further growth till we set up our own R&D in India by 2019. Our focus is still under the 8K category for smartphones and we will be working hard with R&D and re-engineer the best of the technologies at these price points.”

iVoomi also had a long-standing relationship with Hipad. “For years, we have worked very closely with Hipad on multiple projects in strategic terms. Hipad EMS is the best in South East Asia with a proven track record for more than 10 years. Hence, we want to leverage our long relationship to deliver best-in-class products every day. We were the first to start production at their facility based in Noida, followed by Xiaomi. We believe producing/manufacturing close to the market enables us to be highly agile and responsive towards the market and that’s what our association with Hi-pad has empowered us to do. We currently have the capability of making 400K smartphones at the facility. 95%+of the products delivered today by iVOOMi are made in India,” says Ashwin while talking about its partnership with the Hipad technology. 

Discussing on the impact of its present financial result on products and services, he reveals, “We have been consistently achieving our set targets; and in fact, our revenue and numbers have been much above our expectations. This gives us greater leeway to bring on better products and look forward towards building on it at a much faster pace next year.” 

R&D & service support...
Ashwin believes R&D and service support are very important. He shares, “Currently 20% of our revenue is invested in market research and most of the remaining chunk is invested in product development.  iVOOMi has its presence in all 29 states and is further expanding in other parts of the country. We had recently expanded our service centre network by opening 500 more service centres in tier 2, 3 & 4 cities to provide our customers with unmatched after sales services. We are working on an innovative structure for delivering services to the market. The next stage will be building nodal centres, wherein we will have knowledge and support centres to fix the problems being faced by the consumers.”

"iVOOMi’s core value has always been to focus on its strength and it has been able to build the same globally.  “We want to focus on product R&D, build latest, cutting-edge designs while keeping the prices as a value proposition for our iVOOMi fans,” he says.

Summing up, Ashwin asserts, “iVOOMi will be focusing on the under USD 120 category for 2018. Hence, developing and reengineering high-end features and values for our consumers will be our primary focus. With respect to the products, few features that we will be focusing on are Face Unlock, Cool Camera functions, Full View Displays (under 120 USD category), Design innovations, Bigger RAM and memories (under 120 USD), Higher megapixels selfie and back camera, to name a few.” 

Abha Singh
abha@varindia.com