China-based Transsion now eying India smartphone market
New Delhi, June 4: After strengthening its position in the Indian feature phone market, Chinese conglomerate Transsion Holdings is now looking at capturing a bigger pie of the competitive smartphone segment, the company's newly-appointed India CEO has stressed.
In 2017, the company sold approximately 130 million devices and achieved revenue of around 20 billion Yuan (Rs 21,000 crore) globally.
"After seeing tremendous growth for our brand itel in the Indian mobile handset market, we are now focused on creating a bigger space in the Indian smartphone market with a fresh line-up soon," Arijeet Talapatra, CEO of Transsion India, told hereon Monday.
The company is set to launch a series of Next-Gen smartphones aligned with the young consumers' needs in the country.
According to a CyberMedia Research (CMR) report, over the last one year, itel has emerged as the second largest player in the overall mobile phone market in India, capturing more than 9 per cent market share for 2017.
The brand registered an exponential growth of 217 per cent (year-on-year).
"We want to make itel a household name among Indian consumers," said Talapatra.
Transsion today has over 1,000 service touch points in India.
"Since our inception in India, we've been on a mission to provide a superior smartphone experience to all our customers through unique service proposition for all our brands," the CEO reiterated.
As the new CEO, Talapatra will lead the development and execution of the company's long-term strategy with a view to create shareholder value in alignment with the company's identity.
He will be responsible for leading the development and execution of long-term strategies, overall success of the organisation and making top-level managerial decisions.
"India is Transsion's second largest market after Africa. As per recent reports, we have already become the fifth largest mobile handset player in India," Talapatra told IANS.
Transsion Holdings recently launched its second exclusive "company-owned, company-operated (COCO)" service centre in India to provide customer services through its exclusive after-sales service brand called "Carlcare".
Transsion's previous COCO store was inaugurated at Noida in September last year.
"Owing to Carlcare's capabilities and faster repair efficiencies, we have strengthened our service commitment to the Indian customers by launching our second exclusive centre in Mumbai," Talapatra said.
According to the IDC, Transsion Group made its debut in the top 5 in India with more than three-fold annual growth in shipments in Q1 2018.
The China-based group has four brands under its umbrella -- itel, Tecno, Infinix and Spice.
In the first quarter of 2018, itel stood at third position with 13 per cent market share in the global feature phone market, said a Counterpoint report.
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Karnataka open to making Tulu second additional official language: Minister
Bengaluru (PTI): Minister Shivraj Tangadagi on Wednesday told the Legislative Assembly that the Karnataka government is in favour of declaring Tulu as the state’s second additional official language.
He said the government is studying the measures adopted by West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, both of which have additional official languages.
The minister was responding to a question by Puttur Congress MLA Ashok Kumar Rai during Question Hour.
Tulu is predominantly spoken in the coastal districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada, and legislators across party lines from these regions, including Speaker U T Khader, have been demanding that the government declare it as the state’s second additional official language.
At present, Kannada is the state’s only official language, while English is also used for official purposes as an additional language.
"I am continuously following it up. We have written to West Bengal and sent a committee of officials to Andhra Pradesh, where Urdu was recently declared the second official language. The committee has gathered information and returned, but is yet to submit its report," Tangadagi said.
He added that once the report is submitted, a meeting involving the Speaker, district in-charge ministers, and legislators from Tulu-speaking districts will be convened with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. "I want to assure you that we are in favour of this," he said.
Earlier, noting that several states have two or three additional official languages, Rai demanded that Tulu be declared an official language at the earliest, stating that it would not impose any financial burden on the government.
"Tulu has a history of 3,000 years, has its own script, and is included in Google Translate. The language is being researched in Germany and France, and universities have allowed examinations in Tulu," Rai said, adding that this was a unanimous demand of 13 legislators from Tulu-speaking Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, with no opposition.
Saying it had been a long-standing demand, Rai added that a Cabinet meeting was likely to be held in Mangaluru in the coming days and urged that a decision be announced there.
BJP MLA Vedavyas Kamath also demanded early action to declare Tulu an official language. He even spoke in Tulu in the House with Speaker U T Khader, who hails from a Tulu-dominant region and speaks the language fluently.
Kamath said a committee headed by educationist Mohan Alva, constituted by the previous BJP government to examine the issue, had studied the matter in detail and compiled all relevant information.
