Chinese telecom company ZTE today unveiled six new smartphones in the Indian market and said it is looking to garner 20-25 per cent share of the high-end category in the country in the next 3-4 years.
“In the first year, we will just demonstrate the products and introduce new devices in India. Going ahead, we are sure that we will have a 20-25 per cent share of the smartphone segment in the next 3-4 years, given the quality and features of our products,” Yuan Kang, Vice-President (Handsets), ZTE India said.
ZTE launched six new smartphones and four data card devices priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000. “There is a USD 350 million opportunity right now (smartphone and data card market), which is expected to grow to USD one billion in 3-4 years. We definitely want to tap this market,” he said.
In the first year, ZTE is looking at sales of one million smartphones and 0.5 million data card devices in one of the fastest-growing cellphone markets in the world.
According to industry experts, smartphones comprise 24 per cent of the sales volume of the Indian mobile phone market, while in value terms, the share is higher at about 40 per cent.
According to CyberMedia Research (CMR), more than 221 million handsets were shipped to India in 2012.
Though smartphones comprised a small chunk of the overall handset market at about seven per cent, the high-end category grew at a robust 35.7 per cent to 15.2 million devices in 2012 from 11.2 million units in 2011.
ZTE, which supplies feature phones to operators as well, said it has a customer base of over 32 million Indian handset users.
The key markets for ZTE for smartphones currently are China, the US, Japan and Australia. Of the 65 million handsets shipped last year by ZTE, 17 million were smartphones.
“India is a key growth market for us and with the foray in the open smartphone market we are sure to offer an enhanced mobility experience to our Indian customers, further strengthening the brand ZTE here,” Yuan said.
ZTE will further build its portfolio in the months to come and by end-2013, the aim is to have pan-India presence with the smartphones and data cards, he added.