User:InFocus Infocom India/sandbox

NEW DELHI: InFocus, the handset arm of Taiwan’s Foxconn, is planning to invest $10 million to get a foothold in India with a focus on the Rs 10,000 price segment as part of its second attempt to make a mark in the world’s second largest mobile phone market.

InFocus is also working on a 4G Volte featurephone, priced under Rs 3,000, which is likely to be launched before Diwali. The company is working with Reliance Jio on the kind of plans - voice, data and apps - that can be offered bundled with the device, said Dr Luo Zhongsheng, global CEO for Sharp and InFocus Mobile, who is also senior VP at FIH Mobile, the mobile phone arm of Foxconn Technology Group.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer, also plans to launch smartphones from Sharp – the Japanese company’s business it acquired last year – by the year end.

“There is more focus from the headquarters on the India market now, there’s been a change in team, more partners have been added and we’re also getting into featurephones,” Dr Zhongsheng added.

InFocus is eyeing a top five place among handset players in three years through an aggressive push in both online and offline segments in the country, with eight smartphones models between Rs 4,999 and Rs 10,999, and an equal number of featurephone models priced between Rs 699 and Rs 1,099. By next year, InFocus will launch devices upwards of Rs 11,000 in the market.

The brand had first entered the Indian mobile phone market - led by Korea’s Samsung - through Snapdeal in March 2015, but saw limited success amid hyper competition – it sold only two million phones as of December 2016.

“We won’t go the LeEco way and end up wasting a lot of money. We will go step by step and ensure stability in operations. To start with we will invest $10 million into marketing,” Zhongsheng added, Wednesday. He was refering to China’s LeEco which started with a marketing splash in India and big plans but soon faced a cash crunch, which forced it to curb its foray.

Another target of clocking sales of 6 million phones by December – three times what it did last year – has been set. Currently, InFocus is manufacturing its handsets through Dixon and MCM, and after August, it will start using Foxconn facilities in India for the purpose.

As part of its expansion programme, InFocus will ramp up its team of about 50 people to 200 by the end of the year, Luo said.

The company launched two versions of Turbo 5 smartphone priced at Rs 6,999 and Rs 7,999, in an exclusive tie-up with Amazon. With more models, the company aims to reach 50,000 retail touch points in six to eight states and 500 service centres in India by end of the year.

It plans to take a phased approach for the smartphone category. It will start with markets like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and West Bengal to be present across eight states through about 8,000 stores by December this year.