Spice Mobile to manufacture low-cost tablets

HYDERABAD: Spice Mobile, a B K Modi-promoted Spice Group company, may soon enter in to a tie-up with a leading chip maker to manufacture low-cost tablets and smartphones.

Dilip Modi, Managing Director of Spice Mobility, today said the company is also in discussions with a couple of companies in Nigeria and South Africa for acquisition.

Spice Global is actively considering listing in one of the exchanges of London, USA and Hong Kong, he said.

"We are on the verge of entering into a strategic partnership with one of the leading chip making companies to develop smart devices on low-cost platform. What we are trying to do is that we want people to afford smartphones with all the applications," Modi told reporters here.

He said the company wants to be known as the "Apple of Asia" and will come out with many interesting products such as Blueberries and touch screen devices with applications like messaging and social networking at a much lower cost.

Spice Mobility is currently looking at acquiring three firm each in Nigeria, South Africa and West Asia, he said.

"We are currently evaluating acquisitions in Nigeria and South Africa. I can't disclose the names at this time. In the Middle East (West Asia) we are in discussions in one of the leading mobile retail players," he added.

While declining to reveal the names of those firms, Modi said the aim of the company is to sell 35 to 40 million handsets across the regions it is present in.

Spice Global, the parent company of the Group, is mulling overseas listing to raise around USD 1 billion.

The company advisors are working on the exact fund size. A major part of the funds raised through listing will be used for acquisitions, Modi said.

Spice i2i, another Group company, recently acquired Indonesian mobile player Affinity Group for USD 175 million.

Modi said Affinity, which owns the local brand 'Nexian', is in the second place in Indonesia with 21 per cent market share in the mobile handset business next to Nokia.

Apart from contract manufacturing partnerships in Taiwan and China for mobile devices, Spice has an assembling facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.