E-commerce major Flipkart has announced its foray into the hyper-competitive mobile phone market in India with the launch of its Billion Capture+ brand of smartphones.
Smartphone is one of the biggest categories for Flipkart, which is locked in a fierce battle with Amazon for leadership in the booming Indian e-commerce market.
Flipkart on Friday said two variants of its ‘Made for India’ smartphone, priced ₹10,990 onwards, will be available from November 15.
Billion — launched earlier this year — is one of the private labels owned by Flipkart under which it sells mixer grinders, irons, T-shirts, backpacks and cookware.
“The features in Capture+ have been derived from deep data-mining of millions of Flipkart customer reviews,” Sachin Bansal, co-founder and Executive Chairman, Flipkart, said in a statement.
Flipkart’s smartphones will compete with devices from the stables of Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Micromax and others.
Interestingly, Flipkart is an exclusive online partner for many mobile phone brands launched in the country.
India is one of the fastest-growing smartphone markets globally. According to research firm IDC, sales grew 3.7 per cent to 28 million units in April-June 2017 compared with the previous quarter.
Samsung continued to dominate the market with 24 per cent market share. Xiaomi followed in the tally with 17 per cent share, while Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo had 13 per cent, 8 per cent and 7 per cent share, respectively.
“Our extensive research of Indian smartphone buyers revealed major pain points of battery, camera, storage, etc,” said Flipkart Category Head (Billion) Hrishikesh Thite.
He said Billion Capture+ was developed keeping those in mind and delivering it at a “compelling price point”.
Capture+ will feature a 5.5-inch display. The 3GB RAM/32GB internal memory variant will be priced at ₹10,999, while 4GB RAM/64GB internal memory will be available at ₹12,999.
The smartphone will be supported by F1 Info Solutions, which is now owned by Flipkart.