Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC, is looking to double its market share (volume only) in India in a year's time from under 5% at present. So far, the company had been operating in India targeting the high end segment but now, it wants to offer smartphones at consumer friendly prices across a wide portfolio.
To this effect, the company has been creating a lot of noise during the course of the year with a host of new launches hitting the Indian market at not so unaffordable prices when compared to other international brands.
Speaking exclusively to dna, Chia-Lin Chang, president of global sales and chief financial officer, HTC said, "While the value would obviously be higher, we want to have a 10% or higher volume only market share in India by the end of next year i.e. December 2015. Based on our internal assessment and third-party data, our volume only market share for the nine months of 2014 is around 4.5%."
According to Chang, calling India as a 'key market' for HTC will be an understatement.
"This is a market we want to grow, sustain, have a strong presence and be seen as the brand of choice in the mobile devices segment and beyond in the years to come. With that mandate, I have made a lot of changes including launching a very robust product portfolio, which will only get better in the coming months. A significant proportion of our products are being designed keeping the Indian market in mind with other regions participating as well, which we think is quite important," he said.
The Indian market, Chang said, is a a very unique combination of the take off of 3G products and at the same time a beginning of introduction of 4G products.
"The second key factor is that India is a fast growing and expanding market with consumers having different needs at various price points i.e. ultra high end, high end, mid-tier, affordable and mass market. Hence, having the right portfolio in India is very important. The kind of products we have had in the past were possibly very high end but you can now see a big difference with products being offered at very consumer friendly prices ranging between Rs 9,990 to Rs 38,990," said Chang.
Just last week, HTC announced launch of a host of new offerings for the Indian market including HTC One M8 Eye that has already started to be sold in the market for Rs 38,990. The company also announced exclusive partnership with e-marketplace operators like Amazon India for HTC Desire Eye (price not disclosed), HTC Desire 820 (Rs 24,990) and 820q (Rs 22,500) and Snapdeal.com for HTC Desire 516c (Rs 12,500). These handsets will be available from the first week of November. Another innovative offering is the RE little camera compatible with both Android and iOS devices to be sold exclusively on Snapdeal.com for Rs 9,990.
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