SAR Group Buys 55% Stake in Fly Mobiles’ Business in India, Saarc

NEW DELHI: SAR Group, makers of Wynncom brand of mobile phones, has acquired a 55% stake in UK-based Fly Mobiles’ business in India and Saarc regions. Both Fly and Wynncom, with combined sales of about 300 crore annually, and selling nearly 2,00,000 units a month, will continue to be separate brands. SAR plans to become a 1,200-crore brand by mid-decade.

SAR Group promoter Rakesh Malhotra confirmed the development and said that deal size along with additional investments over the next three years will be in the range of 200-250 crore. ET had reported that both groups were in talks last month.

Fly Mobiles is owned by UK’s Meridian Group and has operations in the UK, Europe and CIS
countries with revenues of around $130-140 million, and according to industry insiders, its India operations contribute around $34 million.

SAR Group plans to carve out a separate entity that will manage the handset business, Malhotra said and added he was open to acquiring more brands if required.

The group, which recently sold its 74% stake in Luminous Power Technologies to France’s Schneider Electric for 1,400 crore, plans to grow its telecom business organically. It bought Mumbai-based low-cost phonemaker G-Fone in May 2011 and incorporated some senior executives into Wynncom’s management while merging its product development capabilities.

SAR Group has a 72% stake in Wynncom and holds 80% stake in WorldAce, a third-party arm which services multiple branded handsets across 640 locations in India. It owns Luminous Mobile Accessories, a company that makes batteries and chargers in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh.

“We also plan to scale up handset exports from India to Middle East and Africa, and earn around $25-30 million from exports in the next financial year, from $7,00,000 currently,” Malhotra said. The company aims to sell 6,00,000 handsets a month, which would be a little over half of industry leader Micromax’s monthly sales of 1 million handsets.