Gionee’s ‘Make in India’ plans, going online only if their pricing is respected and more

Chinese smartphone maker Gionee launched its 5.5mm sleek Elife S7 amidst much fanfare at an event in Hyderabad, and the device is expected to hit store shelves this week.

At the event, the company also disclosed its ‘Make in India’ plans. Arvind Vohra, Gionee India head told Firstpost that the company is currently working with Ernst & Young to decide on the location, looking at different types of contracts and feasibility of getting local manpower and so on. The next report about the company’s Make in India plans will be out in four weeks.

Gionee team from China will be here and the head of manufacturing will take the final call, he added. The investment will be stage by stage. The company first plans to start by assembling devices, and after a reasonable success with assembling and depending upon  how the ecosystem develops, the company will move into the second stage of manufacturing and further investment.

William Lu, Gionee’s President also told Firstpost that the company will be entering the wearables market and plans to launch smartwatch/smart band within a year.

Interestingly, Gionee was among the first Chinese brands to enter the Indian market, followed by the rest of the clan. What sets it apart or rather why it hasn’t been make able to create the Xiaomi-like hype is its decision to not just cater to the budget audiences, stay away from online stores. It had started by directly introducing its best devices in the fiercely competitive mid-range market.

For instance, the latest Gionee Elife S7 sports a 5.2-inch full HD Super AMOLED display, 64-bit MediaTek SoC which has a 1.7GHz octa-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM. It includes an internal storage of 16GB and sports a 13MP rear camera. Gionee is known to introduce sleek devices with great imaging features and the S7 is no different. Here’s our first impressions of the Elife S7. The company also plans to launch its next flagship Elife E8 this year and the device will also come to the Indian market.

“There’s a small confusion, people think online is doing great and if you aren’t online you will die. Online, offline, large format retails and recommendations are all channels. You first need to build a strong brand, the more channels only means availability is easy. That’s the way I look it,” Vohra told us on asking about the company’s decision of not teaming up with online retailers.

Vohra said that the company will go online in future only if their pricing is respected. “I have no personal reason not to go online, as long as they respect our pricing. Online retailers should realize that quality control happens in manufacturing through controlling your failure, and in marketing it happens by controlling the price. If they subscribe to our strategy why would I not want to sell devices online,” he explained.

The company has several offline distribution channels and it has teamed up with offline retailers across the country. It’s revenue grew from Rs 500 crores to Rs 2,750 crores this year. The company sold 4 million devices in the fiscal 2014-1015, and 1 million devices in the fiscal year 2013-2014. It now aims at 4 – 6 million turnover target.

Posted by : Gizmeon