Keeping the price of our products low is not a market compulsion but a business philosophy

How was the last fiscal for G'Five mobiles?

The last fiscal was a defining year for G'Five. We shipped more goods to become one of the top 10 global mobile brands as per a Gartner report. We also opened up many international markets. In India G'Five became the second biggest brand, as per an IDC report. We also formed our wholly owned subsidiary in India and are in the process of launching a complete range of new models and products. We also set up over 500 service centers and offered 500 days of warranty for G'Five products.

What is your contribution to the growing 3G handset market?

We are already field testing few 3G models and hopefully we will launch by April.

Any green initiative in handsets launched by G'Five?

We ensure that our products are compliant to the defined standards. We also ensure that our models have a SAR value below the permitted level. We do have energy efficient phones with stronger batteries. As we are a mass brand, our major markets are rural or semi urban. We customize our products considering the needs of our customers from these areas.

Is the manufacturing of handsets done in India or is it outsourced?

At this point of time it's outsourced from our factories outside India but we are conducting a feasibility study to set up a manufacturing unit here.

Please explain how G'Five plans to survive in the low-cost handset domain.

We are the biggest exporters of handsets out of China. So economies of scale and our cost innovation makes us very competitive. As a brand our philosophy is to spread the benefit of technology to masses, so keeping the price of our products low is not a market compulsion but a business philosophy for us. Therefore it's not a threat to our survival but a reason of our survival.

G'Five has recently launched the Telly series; what were your chief strategic decisions behind this launch? Please explain how it will be a key differentiator in the 'Mobile TV' segment already existing in India.

Operators today are the biggest retailers of music in India and there are more people tuning to FM on mobiles than radios. Internet on handsets is also growing very fast. So the missing link was only a TV. We realized that Doordarshan has few free-to-air channels, which run many entertaining and informative programs. There is a one news channel and also these channels telecast all the important sporting events including the cricket World Cup. So our strategy is simply to enhance the consumer's multimedia experience. Though we are not the first one to offer a Mobile TV but we are definitely the first one to launch a complete range. The idea is to empower a consumer to choose the kind of handset he or she needs and enjoy their cricket, or for that matter their TV, whenever, wherever.

Akanksha Singh
akankshas@cybermedia.co.in