Most exciting smartphone market in the world

The Indian smartphone market will be on an upsurge for at least the next three to four years, predicts Coolpad CEO

Leading Chinese telecommunications and smartphones brand Coolpad has emerged as an active player in the Indian smartphone business. Excerpts from an interview with Sayed Tajuddin, CEO, Coolpad Communications:
What is your perspective on the Indian smartphones segment? 
The smartphone market in India is at its competitive best and the opportunities and challenges are in abundance. This is the most exciting time for smartphone brands to establish themselves in India, currently the second largest and the fastest growing smartphone market in the world. 
With sales slowing down in mature markets like the U.S., China and Europe, handset makers are expanding their presence in the Indian market, bringing in the best devices to their product portfolio. The Indian smartphone market will be on an upsurge for at least the next three to four years. So considering all this, India is already the most exciting smartphone market in the world right now. 
Does your company expect a larger market share in India?   
Coolpad is one of the fastest growing brands and we are focusing to strengthen our product strategy to compete with every brand
More than half of users own feature phones in India, which presents a great opportunity for smartphone brands like ours to capture more market from that segment. We aim to tap this market with great value for money smartphones at aggressive pricing and innovative features, which are to be launched in the coming months, basically to make the smartphones economically accessible to the masses. 
Many of the Indian handset manufacturers have had their origins in China. Do you see India emerge as a manufacturing hub for smartphones? 
Many markets across the globe are at saturation points and brands there are only competing to capture market share from each other. The smartphone market in India is at its prime and still there is a lot of opportunity to capture potential new users, who would like to shift from feature phones to smart phones. 
With the current Make in India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is moving towards becoming a global manufacturing hub for smartphones and will give a strong competition to the already established economies. 
The government is announcing a lot of benefits for brands who are looking to manufacture in India. The availability of skilled labour and technology advancement is making India the centre point of global manufacturing. We might even see export of handsets from India to the other parts of the world. 
What are your expansion and diversification plans? 
As of now India and the U.S. are the priority markets for us. India in particular is on our radar to strengthen our position. For the next two years we are focusing to establish our brand in India with super value offerings. 
After consolidating here we plan to make our foothold strong in SAARC countries. The Middle East is definitely on our radar and we are already working on feasibility parameters to launch the brand in the region.  As far as expansion in India is concerned, we plan to have more retail partners across the country and are on our way to build a strong offline retail network. Diversification is definitely not on the cards in terms of new products, as the smartphone segment is our core business. 
Do you export to the Gulf? 
As of now we don't have a market in the Gulf. But yes the opportunity to launch our brand is there. We might take a call in the future and we are already doing feasibility mapping for the same. 
Do you invest in R&D to ensure your leadership position?
R&D has been the backbone of our brand, since inception. We came to the Indian market with some well thought out products, based on strong R&D and it has worked well for us. For us R&D has been a great tool to check the feasibility of some of our out of the box ideas, for tech innovations. 

• India