Karbonn aiming at Rs. 8,000 crore revenue in FY 2015

Domestic handset maker Karbonn aims to clock a revenue of Rs. 8,000 crores in 2014-15, growing close to 80 percent, as it expands its smartphone portfolio.

Karbonn, which is the country's third largest smartphone maker, expects to close the current fiscal with Rs. 4,500 crores in revenues.

"About 80 percent of our handsets sold are feature phones and the remaining are smartphones. We expect the ratio to change to 50-50 in the next fiscal," Karbonn Managing Director Pardeep Jain told PTI.

Smartphones account for 40 percent of Karbonn's revenues and that is expected to grow to 65 percent, he said.

Also, Karbonn plans to spend Rs. 300 crores on marketing and sales and about Rs. 400 crores on R&D during the next fiscal, Jain said, adding that the spend will focus on smartphones.

The company on Wednesday launched three new smartphones, based on the latest Android KitKat operating system and hexa and octa-core processors, in partnership with mobile chipmaker MediaTek.

The three phones - Titanium Hexa, Titanium Octane and Titanium Octane Plus - are priced at Rs. 16,990, Rs. 14,490 and Rs. 17,990, respectively. The devices will start shipping from the last week of April.

"We are the first Indian brand to offer KitKat OS to the Indian consumers. The smartphone market in India grew by nearly 229 percent in 2013 and the partnership with MediaTek will allow us to further consolidate our position in the domestic market," he said.

According to research firm IDC, smartphone sales surpassed 44 million units in 2013, up from 16.2 million in 2012.

This surge has been mainly powered by home grown vendors which have shown a tremendous and consistent growth over the past four quarters of 2013.

Samsung led the Indian smartphone market (37 percent), followed by Micromax (16 percent), Karbonn (10 percent) and Sony (5 percent) in the October-December 2013 period.

The overall phone market in India stood at close to 257 million units in 2013, an 18 percent increase from 218 million units in 2012, with a remarkable migration from feature phones to smartphones primarily due to the narrowing price gaps between the two product categories

Karbonn Titanium Octane, Titanium Octane Plus, Titanium Hexa smartphones launched

Karbonn has launched three new Android smartphones in India, one hexa-core and two octa-core, theKarbonn Titanium Hexa (Rs. 16,990), Titanium Octane (Rs. 14,490), and Titanium Octane Plus (Rs. 17,990). All three smartphones feature dual-SIM support, run Android 4.4 KitKat, and will be available in the Indian market in the last week of April.

The Karbonn Titanium Octane features a 5-inch HD IPS display, and runs on a 1.7GHz octa-coreMediaTek MT6592 processor with 1GB of RAM. Like the Titanium Hexa, it features a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It is powered by a 2000mAh battery. It features 16GB of built-in storage that is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB. 

Connectivity options on the Titanium Octane include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, 3G (HSPA+), and Bluetooth 4.0. The phone measures 145.7x71.2x7.9mm, though no weight has been provided. 

The Karbonn Titanium Octane Plus features a 5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixel) IPS display, and runs on the 1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor, however, with 2GB of RAM. It features a 16-megapixel autofocus rear camera with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Also powered by a 2000mAh battery like the Titanium Octane. the Titanium Octane Plus features 16GB of built-in storage that is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB.

Connectivity options on the Titanium Octane Plus include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, 3G (HSPA+), and Bluetooth 4.0. The phone measures 147.3x72.6x7.6mm, and once again, no weight has been provided. 

The Karbonn Titanium Hexa (seen above) features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixel) LTPS display, and is powered by a 1.5GHz hexa-core MediaTek MT6591 processor that is coupled with 2GB of RAM. The Titanium Hexa bears a 13-megapixel rear autofocus camera with flash, and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It features 16GB of built-in storage that is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB. It is powered by a 2050mAh battery.

Connectivity options on the Titanium Hexa include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS, 3G (HSPA+), and Bluetooth 4.0. The phone measures 154x76.8x6.9mm, and once again, no weight has been provided. 

Finbarr Moynihan, MediaTek's General Manager of International Sales and Marketing, at the launch event in New Delhi said, "The target for our companies is very aligned. A shared mission of 'Everyday Genius', and enabling the growth of the 'super-mid' market. The shift in the middle class - literally billions of people - is going to be heavily concentrated in Asia. The spending power from 2009 has grown exponentially."

At the same time, Moynihan elaborated, operators in US and European markets are struggling with subsidies, and these two forces will lead to a bell curve where the highest volume - about 80 percent of the market - is in the middle. "Over time, the volume will shift to the higher-middle, or super-mid," he added.

 

Karbonn Titanium Hexa

• KEY SPECS

Display

5.50-inch

Processor

1.5GHz

Front Camera

5-megapixel

Resolution

1080x1920 pixels

RAM

2GB

OS

Android 4.4

Storage

16GB

Rear Camera

13-megapixel

Battery capacity

2050mAh

See full Karbonn Titanium Hexa specifications

Karbonn Titanium Octane

• KEY SPECS

Display

5.00-inch

Processor

1.7GHz

Front Camera

5-megapixel

Resolution

1080x1920 pixels

RAM

1GB

OS

Android 4.4

Storage

16GB

Rear Camera

13-megapixel

Battery capacity

2000mAh

See full Karbonn Titanium Octane specifications

Karbonn Titanium Octane Plus

• KEY SPECS

Display

5.00-inch

Processor

1.7GHz

Front Camera

8-megapixel

Resolution

1080x1920 pixels

RAM

2GB

OS

Android 4.4

Storage

16GB

Rear Camera

16-megapixel

Battery capacity

2000mAh

Karbonn, Lava to launch Windows Phone smartphones in few months

Domestic handset players Lava and Karbonn will launch Windows-based smartphones in the coming few months.

Karbonn's Windows phones will be in the price range of Rs 6,000-12,000. Lava's price starts with Rs 6,500.

"We will come out with four devices with Windows-based operating system by the end of May or starting of June in the price range of 6,000-12,000," Karbonn Managing Director Pradeep Jain told PTI.

Lava International CEO and MD Hari Om Rai said: "A series of Windows-based phones will be launched under the Lava brand by July. These will be priced in the range of Rs 6,500-8,500."

He said the phones will be based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and will feature Windows 8 platform.

"We expect the Windows-based phones to represent 8-10 per cent volume of Lava smartphones starting July-August time- frame," Rai added.

For Xolo brand of phones, the expected timeline of launch is the coming quarter.

"We at XOLO believe that Windows OS has certain goodness to offer for a certain market segment and it will help XOLO reach a desired 15 per cent share of the smartphone market by end of 2014," a Xolo spokesperson said.

Last month, at the Mobile World Congress Microsoft had announced that it would be working with nine new Windows phone partners, including Foxconn, Gionee, JSR, Karbonn, Lava (Xolo), Lenovo, LG, Longcheer and ZTE.

HTC, Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are already making Windows-based devices.

As per the IDC figures of the last quarter of 2013, Android had a 78.1 per cent share of global smartphone shipments while the Microsoft Windows Phone platform share stood at 3 per cent