Vietnamese handset maker, Mobiistar recently made headlines when it decided to set up its global headquarters in India. This is also the first time that a smartphone brand from Vietnam has entered the Indian market. The company has tied up with Haryana-based manufacturer V-Sun Technologies to locally assemble handsets. According to Mobiistar, the Indian handset market offers size, growth and potential for all kinds of handset players. It sees significant opportunity in the Rs 6,000-Rs 10,000 price range and is working to offer a better price-to-specification ratio and user experience in this range. The com­­pany is also looking to tap the smartphone selfie camera segment, which has been largely dominated by Chinese brands like Oppo and Vivo. It has already laun­ched five to six dual selfie camera smartphones in India. The company aims to gain a foothold in the hyper-competitive Indian market and feature among the top five players in the sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone segment, which covers about 50 per cent of the Indian smartphone market. In addition, Mobiistar is planning to set up its surface-mount technology for printed circuit board assembling in India.

Strategy in India

  • Service coverage: The company has launched products in various cities of Pu­n­jab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam among other states in the Northeast.
  • Offerings: As part of its partnership with Flipkart, the company has launched the Mobiistar XQ Dual and the Mobiistar CQ. In addition, it has released the X1 dual and E1 selfie smartphones priced under Rs 11,000. It has also released the C1 Lite, C1 and C2 smartphones, which are priced under Rs 7,000.
  • R&D: For local research and development (R&D), Mobiistar has partnered with chipset vendors and design houses. The brand has launched 850 service outlets, which will be increased to 1,000.
  • Workforce: The company is also planning to bring 3,000 people on board for its India operations by March 2019. This will also include those who work as third-party partners for the company.

Betting big on sales and distribution

The company initially started with the online sales model, but has now moved to offline channels in a big way. Online smartphone retail accounts for about around 30 per cent of the total mobile retail market, indicating that about 70 per cent of the market is still offline. To tap this market, Mobiistar is planning to establish 600 distributors across the country starting with the top 50 cities and towns. Of these, arou­nd 125 distributors will have a presence in the southern states, engaging with 10,000 retailers. Further, the company will have around 800 employees and 185 service centres in the southern region. Recently, the company started offline sales in Telan­gana and Andhra Pradesh. The company has also forayed into the Northeast market and is planning to partner with 24 distributors and 2,000 retailers in the region. It will also hire over 100 employees and set up 23 service centres across the region.

Challenges and the way forward

Mobiistar is still a small company, which sells about 100,000 phones every month. In contrast, Chinese players like Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, which it considers as its biggest competitors, have expanded their respective businesses in a big way.

Mobiistar can strengthen its position in the Indian market if its idea of manufacturing handsets in the sub-Rs 10,000 price range pays off. The company has an ad­van­tage as the budget smartphone market has not seen many participants so far.

Also, Mobiistar comes with an experience of nine years in the global handset industry, with operations in Vietnam, Dubai and Cambodia. Thus, its entry in the Indian market should be smooth. That it has a well-defined target audience can work in its favour. How it would capture its target market in an ever-crowding In­dian handset space is yet to be seen.