Asus aims to be among top 5 smartphone players next year

Betting on the success of its Zenfone series of smartphones, Taiwanese tech major Asus is targeting to be among the top five players in the smartphone space in India by the end of 2015.

"By the end of next year, our target is to be among the top 5. The response for the Zenfone series have been very good. We have sold over 1 lakh units so far," Asus India Regional Head (South Asia and Country Manager) Peter Chang said.

The company has four smartphones under the Zenfone series.

"The current range is good enough to compete with other players. In the price range we cover, from Rs 5,999 to Rs 16,999, we have smartphones from 4-6 inches. So, we think we cover 60 per cent of the market, which is good enough as first step," Chang said.

The company entered the smartphone market in July as it thought that just being in the computer market would have some constraints, he said.

"The thinking to enter the smartphone segment was there for a while. Since two-three years back, we started to see that if you only stay in computer market, you have some constraints, specially now when people are using different kinds of devices... We cannot stay only in laptop, we have to also enter the other devices," Chang added.

Apart from smartphones, the company sells tablets and PCs under Fonepad series.

The Indian smartphone market is witnessing strong competition between local and international players, all vying to grab a share of the multi-billion dollar market.

According to IDC, smartphone sales in India grew almost 3-fold to over 44 million in 2013.

In the first quarter of 2014, 17.59 million smartphones were shipped in India, compared to 6.14 million in the same period of 2013.