The smartphone battle in India has begun. While Samsung, according to market sources, is the leader in the smartphone segment, other players are working out their respective strategies.

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC is amongst the top four handset original equipment makers (OEMs) in the country. Having reworked its marketing strategy, the company is now eyeing increasing its market-share over the next 18 months.

In an interview to Business Line , Faisal Siddiqui, Country Manager, HTC India, speaks about the company’s plans.

Edited excerpts:

How is HTC placing itself in the highly competitive smartphone market in India?

India is one of the key markets for us and we have invested heavily here. Our Indian operations have grown by over 100 per cent over the last nine months based primarily on the back of strong products and right prices. We start at Rs 9,000 and go all the way up to Rs 36,000.

So what are your expectations now?

We intend to be the number one smartphone player in the country over the next year-and-a-half and have a significant market share. Maybe triple our market share by that time. (HTC currently has 8-10 per cent market share).

And how would you do that?

Our distribution network has been ramped up to cover 50-plus cities. Recent investments in retail include putting store-in-stores and a standalone outlet in Delhi. We have also doubled our manpower resources (across the board), and doubled the after-sales services infrastructure.

We will double our presence in over 100 cities and triple our service infrastructure. Our product portfolio too will be widened in the next 18 months.

You will also see us invest heavily in our retail presence and create brand awareness, whether it is above-the-line or displays in the retail or in the sales force. We also intend to quadruple our in-store demonstrators.

Despite being in India for several years now, what was it that you failed to capitalise on to be a market leader in the smartphone segment?

I don’t think anything went wrong with strategy. At the end of the day, what we stood for was not compromising on the quality of the handset. We did not create a phone from an Indian context, say a Rs 5,000 or Rs 6,000 phone. But over the last 18 months our India business has grown.

Eighteen months earlier, I think we did not invest enough in “brand HTC”. It is, however, not about the product. What I am referring to is investing in the brand, distribution and service centres. We created a plan. We learnt our lessons and turned the strategy around. Now we want to take that to the next level.

So what would be new at HTC now?

It’s doing more of what we are doing now. Portfolio is not an issue. But we should ensure that people know about the handsets.

How do you see competition from Indian handset vendors?

For smartphones, I don’t see much of a threat. The market is growing as a whole. And it’s growing in different price segments which are good for all of us.

When a customer buys a handset priced Rs 8,000, he wants quality and service attached to it. We want to ensure these aspects.

In the feature phone segment, Indian players have a sizable, but not significant, market share. We haven’t seen any such impact in the smartphone segment.

The market is growing and so there might be some opportunities for them at the lower end.

Despite being one of the early developers of the Windows platform, Android has been HTC’s predominant operating system. Your comments?

We stand for choice and we give that choice to the customer. For us it is not Windows versus Android.

There are a few things that are working on the Windows 8 platform. One of them is the application (Apps) ecosystem. And that is one of the key things in a smartphone.

Also, on the awareness of the Windows platform as a whole, a lot of investments are being done by Microsoft.

There have been fewer launches this year from HTC India. Is it a conscious strategy?

Yes. Earlier we used to launch many more models. But now we have started launching fewer models. The greater emphasis is on (having an offering at) a particular price point rather than flooding it with many. We want to make sure that we give the best models in a particular price point.

This year we have launched 12 models. I don’t know if it will be the same next year.

>abhishek.l@thehindu.co.in

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