Vietnamese handset company Mobiistar Thursday said it is ramping up its presence in the offline retail market and is aiming to be present across 50,000 retail points in the country in the next two months.
The company, which competes against the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and a host of Chinese and Indian phone brands, had forayed into the Indian market in May this year through online channel.
"India is a key market for us and we have received good response in the last few months. We started our offline journey a few months ago and already have over 500 distributors with presence in 32,000 outlets. We want to take this to 50,000 by January-end," Mobiistar Group CEO Carl Ngo told PTI.
Declining to comment on sales numbers, he said the company is witnessing 50 per cent month-on-month growth.
Mobiistar had launched two devices for the online market and then unveiled five devices for the offline segment. The company is now set to unveil two more devices this month in the sub-Rs 10,000 category that will be sold through offline retail channels.
A number of handset makers, including the likes of Motorola and Xiaomi, have adopted the approach of entering the Indian market through the online channel and then adding brick-and-mortar stores to expand sales.
More From This Section
Ngo said the company will continue to focus on sub Rs 6,000-10,000 category as it comprises a bulk of the market but will also explore the Rs 10,000-15,000 category "in line with the consumer journey".
India is one of the world's largest smartphone markets and growing steadily. Interestingly, while new players like Tambo and Britzo entered the Indian market in the last few quarters, companies like Comio have also exited the market.
Smartphone shipments in India touched an all-time high of 42.6 million units in July-September 2018 quarter, registering an year-on-year growth of 9.1 per cent, according to the research firm IDC.
This is the first time when the smartphone market is at par with the feature phone market with each segment contributing 50 per cent to the overall mobile phone market.
Xiaomi led the smartphone tally with shipment of 11.7 million units and 27.3 per cent market share, followed by Samsung 9.6 million units (22.6 per cent share), vivo 4.5 million units (10.5 per cent share), Micromax 2.9 million units (6.9 per cent share) and Oppo 2.9 million units (6.7 per cent share).