Panasonic India is planning to launch Windows based smartphones by the end of the next month to increase its market share.
The phones will be available in the price range of under Rs10000 to Rs15000."We will come out with two devices with windows based operating system by the end of august or the first week of September," Panasonic India Manish Sharma Managing Director told The Pioneer.On Pricing Sharma said "One phone will be in sub - Rs10000 and another will in sub- Rs15000 adding that they will also launch 15 smartphones and eight feature phones this year."
Panasonic, which entered the smartphone market here last year, has also declared India as the headquarters for its handset business.He added that the company is looking at aggressively expanding its portfolio in the country to take its market share to 5 per cent in the next one year.The company is also planning to expand its reach to SAARC countries in the next month, "we are going to SAARC markets in august and in September we will move to South Africa and Middle East countries," Sharma informed.
Over the past a few months, the smartphone market has seen fierce competition, fuelled further by new entries like Gionee, Oppo and Xiaomi from China.
In 2013, smartphone sales in the country grew almost three-fold to over 44 million, as per research firm IDC. In Q1 of 2014 alone, 17.59 million smartphones were shipped in India with sales being driven by affordable devices.While Samsung is the category leader with a 35 per cent market share in Q1, local firms like Micromax (15 per cent), Karbonn (10 per cent) and lAVA (six per cent) also held significant share of the market. Nokia had 4 per cent share.
"We will have devices across price points. However, for us the sweet spot would be between Rs 16,500 to Rs20,000," Sharma said.Asked if the company was looking at setting up a manufacturing unit in India, he said the company would look at one after it has "certain economies of scale".
"In two years, we will be in a position to take a firm call," he said.Talking about the Eluga U handset launched on Wednesday, Sharma said the handset will be available in the first week of August.