Celkon plans to foray into 4G phones and a range of tablets, with an eye to target revenues of ₹1,000 crore in the 2016 fiscal.

The Hyderabad-based device maker plans to come out with a 7” and 8” tablets, both 4G-enabled. “Further, we are looking at smartphones in the 4-5” screen size, which will be sub-10K, equipped with the latest features,” Murali Retineni, Executive Director, Celkon Mobiles, told BusinessLine .

The revenue projection comes on the back of 30-50 per cent revenue growth that the company has seen in the last couple of years. Retineni said the company has the potential to grow at a similar pace this fiscal.

Game plan

Celkon is readying its game plan, especially with the recent announcement of setting up of its second manufacturing facility near Tirupati and an increasing push by vendors to make affordable 4G phones. The facility will manufacture entry-level and mid-level smartphones and feature phones, along with tablets, by the year-end, company executive said.

Further, the facility will also manufacture phones for other Indian companies such as Micromax and Karbonn. Currently, Celkon has a sales of 7 lakh handsets a month and is targeting 10 lakh units a month.

The first manufacturing plant is operational across 30,000 square feet and has four production lines that has a production capacity of 3 lakh units per month. Currently, the production lines have been increased to 12, as the company sees a rise in demand for its range of products. This has prompted the company to get into the tablet space.

Continued demand for affordable smartphones in emerging markets drove worldwide sales of smartphones in the third quarter of 2015, according to research firm Gartner. Similarly, according to IDC, 28.3 million smartphones were shipped to India in the third quarter of 2015 – up 21.4 per cent from 23.3 million units for the same period last year.

In comparison, tablet sales have not been that spectacular. Analysts like Meike Escherich of Gartner believe that uptake is driven by applications rather than by the hardware. “Most applications work pretty well with first- and second-generation tablet hardware, and because the operating system can be upgraded for free, the user is not compelled to change the device and is more interested in the applications and how they can use cloud computing," she said.

Bets on education sector

Retineni opined that Celkon’s tablets are positioned towards the education sector where content will play an important role and is confident of an uptake with the increasing digitisation happening in schools in India.

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