KPK Selvaraj – President, Golden Impex

Zoom Me and Kytes are two mobile phone brands that were launched recently by Chinabased OEM/ODM player Shenzhen Guowei Network Service Limited in association with Golden Impex at an event in New Delhi. While Zoom Me is a smartphone brand, Kytes stands in the feature phone segment. Ramesh Kumar Raja talked to KPK Selvaraj, President, Golden Impex, to discuss more about these brands and their positioning in India. Excerpts:

How are you positioning the brands Zoom Me and Kytes in India, which already is a hypercompetitive market having innumerable mobile players at different price points? Our target customers primarily would be sector B and C who are possibly fence-sitters in the feature phone segment but eagerly anticipating an opportunity to enter the smartphone segment. We offer the price advantage to make this target audience readily buy smartphones from their nearby retail outlet. Our product is designed to offer the best of 4G experience on the Android platform. Since our market is full of so many mobile players, still there is a gap available for the right brands like us who are coming with right price with excellent quality and value for money consumer experience.

For Kytes feature phones, we are looking forward to add some special features with very strong price point to make a stand in the Indian mobile phone market

How has been the response so far and what’s your expansion plan to make these brands large? The response was good from our channel partners and retailers. In the first phase of brand launch in select markets in north, east and west India, we are trying to achieve a retail reach of 5,000 to 7,000 outlets. In the second phase, the estimated target is to be present in 10,000 outlets pan India.

The primary business objective at the outset is to provide the rightproduct, at the right time, at the right price and forge a strong business relationship with our channel partners based on transparent and healthy business practices. More than capturing market share in the category, we would like to consistently build equity through positive word of mouth via 2 main channels – retailers and end customers. This can be possible through keeping the basics right and constantly value-adding to the product and service, coupled with strong messaging through offline and online mediums.

Which is going to be the dominant vertical for you – smartphones or feature phones? Mobile phone has become the core terminal of smart life, smart home, smart wear etc. all rely on smart phone platform. It helps manage your life, living, health, work, entertainment... Frameless, doublesided curved screen and other mobile phone design continue to bring surprises - smartphone “black technology” gives you unlimited imagination.

With the evolution and development of the mobile communication industry since 2012, smart phones quickly swept the global mobile phone market, the number of users showed explosive growth. From 2009 to 2019, smartphones reached annual compound growth rate of more than 70% in the global mobile phone shipments. Hence, our focus would be on smartphones mainly, but

keeping the Indian geography in mind, we will keep maintaining the feature phone vertical too.

Which are the areas from where maximum demand is coming for both these brands? Currently, north, west and east India markets have given us good response. States like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Haryana and Maharashtra have responded well to us.

What is your investment plan for India? the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2019, we anticipate to have enough market volume to grab a good share in India. In the following year, we are aggressively planning to set up our own SMT facilities in India. We are planning to invest approximately 1,000 crore over the period of two years. This investment will go into setup of pan India operations, sales, after sales and distribution network, marketing and production.

“Zoom Me as a name has a youthful and energetic zing to it. In a cluttered market, it is also imperative to register the brand name and recall strongly in the consumer mind space. The top of the mind awareness has to be systematically driven. The brand name has therefore taken the form of an expression wherein Zoom Me stands for not only a name but connecting to everything that is positive, vibrant and focused”

Online of offline – which one is going to be your priority? We are targeting both online and offline segments to enter and make a space for our brands, but offline would be our major selling point.

Handset-telco bundling has emerged as a next big thing in India. Do you have any plan to leverage this trend? Yes, definitely we are looking at this aspect also in the coming future.

What efforts you are taking to build the recall value of the brand? Zoom Me as a name has a youthful and energetic zing to it. In a cluttered market, it is also imperative to register the brand name and recall strongly in the consumer mind space. The top of the mind awareness has to be systematically driven. The brand name has therefore taken the form of an expression wherein Zoom Me stands for not only a name but connecting to everything that is positive, vibrant and focused. Aggressive digital marketing and BTL will help to create a pull for the product, and forge a lasting relationship with the trade and customers. Our proposition will be our product advantage in terms of its outstanding features and driving the brand name strongly to ensure top of mind recall.

After sales service remains an issue for majority of phone makers. What is your approach to it? Yes, the after sale service is a major factor for all mobile phone brands. We have a strong after sales service team all India with regional support. We are directly appointing 500-700 service centers managed by our team.

Please tell us something about R&D and innovation at Zoom Me and Kytes? Our parent company, Rainbow, was founded in 2006 and is one of China’s hi-tech enterprise specializing in providing the global market with design, R&D of mobile communication terminal products, as well as integrated management of supply chains, integrated product services, complete phone solutions and other services. Based on well-rounded R&D, design capability, focus on mobile ODM manufacturing, providing customized services for low, mid, high-end technology products to customers all over the world. With product design at the core, Rainbow has a complete R&D team. Software, hardware, design, project management and other R&D staff ratio are more than 50%, most of whom are industry experts. Raibow now has 24 licensed patents, software and other intellectual property rights. Rainbow has been awarded Dual Software Enterprise, New High-tech Enterprise in Shenzhen City, National New High-tech Enterprise and other titles.

We have assembling operations in India and we have tied-up with Creatons, one of the leading assembling units in Noida, and subsequently looking forward for starting full scale SMT production in India in coming years.n

ramesh@mymobile.co.in