Intex eyes Rs 1,800 cr revenue from mobile handset business

MUMBAI: Mobile handset maker Intex today said it expects to garner Rs 1,800 crore in revenues this fiscal on the back of strong growth in smartphone sales in the country.

This is an ambitious target for the company, which posted Rs 425 crore from the segment last fiscal.

"The target may be big but we have seen 400 per cent growth quarter on quarter in terms of sales. Earlier, we were targetting Rs 1,200 crore in revenues for this fiscal, but now we have revised it to Rs 1,800 crore," Intex Technologies Senior General Manager Sanjay Kalirona told PTI.

The Group turnover has also been revised from Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore for the year, he added.

The company also manufactures computer peripherals. Intex, which launched its i7 smartphone today, is also looking at launching eight more such devices in the next two months.

"Currently, we have 35 feature phones, 12 smartphones and three tablets in our range. In the next 2 months, we will have eight more smartphones in the Rs 4,000-Rs 20,000 range," Kalirona said.

Priced at 21,900, the i7 is the most expensive handset from the Intex stable. The 5-inch device is equipped with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS, 1.5GHz quad core processor, 2GB RAM and 32 GB built-in memory (not expandable).

Intex will also offer 5 GB additional storage space on the cloud for consumers. The phone also has a 13 megapixel rear camera and a 5 MP front camera.

Besides applications like Matrabhasha and my screen (allows users to perform four functions simultaneously), the phone comes with a 'look away' feature (pauses the device when the user looks away).

Asked about the impact of rupee depreciation, Kalirona said the company had to hike prices by five per cent last month.

"The situation countinues to be a concern. We are constantly monitoring it. We had no option but to pass on the burden to the consumers (last month). If things continue like this, maybe we will have to hike (price)," he added.

Intex Director Marketing (Mobile phones) Keshav Bansal said the company has about six per cent share in the Indian mobile phone market (feature and smartphones) and similar share in the smartphone segment too.

"We are aggressively looking at expanding our share. Last month, we sold 1.5 lakh smartphones and now we are looking at doubling this number. This year, we expect to sell 20 lakh smartphones," he added.

According to research firm IDC, Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Maxx and Intex are the rising players in the emerging smartphone market in India.

It said local brands have aggressively scaled up their operations and are competitive on both price and hardware specifications.

These players comprised 38 per cent of second quarter 2013 volumes, up from 20 per cent in the same quarter of 2012 and 7 per cent in 2011 second quarter, IDC added.

As per CyberMedia Research data, 73.5 million mobile handsets were sold in India in January-April 2013, of which 9.4 million devices were smartphones.

While feature phones category grew 2.4 per cent, smartphones witnessed 167.3 per cent growth in the said period.

The company, which signed on Bollywood actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar as its brand ambassador earlier this year, has set up a Rs 100 crore marketing budget for this year.

"We are engaging in 360-campaign across platforms with strong focus on social media. Our new TV commercial will also be out soon with Farhan for the new handset," Bansal said.