Chinese handset player Transsion Holdings’ TECNO is aiming to become one of the top 4-5 smartphone brands in the Rs 7000-Rs 15000 price category in the offline segment by the end of 2018.
The company is also in talks with Reliance Jio for tie-ups with some of its brands where as part of the tie-up the customers will get bundled voice-data and cashback. It will be announcing a telco partner soon for its TECNO brand.
According to ET, Transsion executives Lin Qin, Vice President and Gaurav Tikoo, Senior Vice President (India) said that Transsion has around 10% market share in India currently which includes all its brands in the offline segment except for Infinix which is an online brand.
On being asked about the company’s manufacturing plans this year, the executives said, “We’ve just started our manufacturing facilities and we will be gradually moving our CBU units to SKD units depending on the uptake of the new Tecno series launched. Our current manufacturing facility is serving all our brands under Transsion.”
“We will be looking at doubling our volume this year,” they added. The company which launched four brands in the market for targeting different consumer segments will be focusing on manufacturing in India this year.
Transsion as a group is covering above 90000 retailers for offline in India.
In India, Chinese handset makers have cornered a lion share of the Indian handset, especially smartphone, market. Chinese brands contributed to more than half of the total smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2017 calendar year, according to the Counterpoint Research.
The third quarter was their third consecutive quarter when their market share is well over 50% after they took over local players in the second half of 2016. Notably, Xiaomi, iTel, Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus — all Chinese brands– were the fastest growing smartphone brands during the third quarter.
