InFocus to launch 16 new handset models: Piyush Puri

By Ankit Parashar

Under licensing agreement signed with Foxconn, InFocus has re-launched as a new brand in the India market. Its Turbo5 smartphone, is a first from a series of product line-up especially developed for the India market. Piyush Puri, VP India & South Asia, Innocom Electronics shares more in an interview with Voice&Data:

Voice&Data:  Can you tell us more about the distribution presence and channel strategies for InFocus in India?

Piyush Puri: By the end of the next quarter, our feature phones will be available in 50,000 retail outlets; and smartphones will be available in 8 states by this quarter itself. For offline segment sales, we will appoint 500 distribution partners all across India. InFocus will be focusing on channel ecosystem and online channel – both for all India distribution for feature phones and smartphones. Our national distribution partner is VRP Telemetics and they will further appointing state distributors.

 Voice&Data: How many products you are planning to launch in the market and what’s your branding strategy?

Piyush Puri: In the budget segment, 8 feature phones starting from Rs 699 are going to be launched soon with 100 days replacement. In the same category, we are doing R&D and working with Jio to give a 4G feature phone to the customers. Developing a 4G feature phone is not a major challenge but we want our customers to have feature phones with WhatsApp, Facebook, Money transfer, Browser… On the other hand, we will also have 8 new smartphone models, 4 for online and 4 for offline market.

Right now, InFocus is branding across product portfolio and new innovations. In feature phone category, we are developing a new sub brand—Hero series. For the smartphone category, we will have 3 series – A, M and N. A series will be for offline channel, M series will exclusively available for Online and our high-end N series will be launched in November 2017.

 Voice&Data: What is InFocus roadmap for the next 12 months?

Piyush Puri: For current financial year, InFocus plans to introduce 16 new products, aiming to reach 6 million units by volume by the end of this year. The next 12 months will be the time to watch out for InFocus as we launch an array of innovative and disruptive products in both online and offline channels. We have recently ramped up our service network across India with 326 after sales service touch-points. We have also strengthened our backend processes to deliver a great after sale service experience to our customers. We also plan to create 500 service centers touch points by the end of this year. InFocus is 100% Made in India. Design is done in China though. We have two manufacturing units in Noida one for smartphones, and the other one for feature phones.