Gionee  sees potential growth in Indian Market

In a talk with VARINDIA, Alok Shrivastava, Head, Business Intelligence and Planning, Gionee India, talks about the company’s plan to expand their retail presence in the country with establishing 500 brand stores by March 2018.

Gionee Mobiles, a China-based mobile company, continues to be one of the largest selling phones in India amongst its other Chinese counterparts and making its presence felt in the Indian market. Alok Shrivastava discussed his current plans and campaigns to attract prospective customers and is also planning to set up an end-to-end manufacturing unit in Faridabad with an investment of Rs.500 crore. He says, “We continue to sell much higher in volume and value terms compared to our online competitors. To us, online is another sales channel and we believe we should be a part of it without any pricing disparities. Online availability is often convenient and we believe we must ensure every convenience to our customers – we want to make smiles.”

Currently, the company has its 42,000 retail outlets across 2,200 cities pan India and the products are also present in 12,000 special shop-in-shops. On the customers and sales, Alok Shrivastava says, “We feel that an exclusive store helps the customer get an understanding of what Gionee has to offer at a different price and need points. We believe that this will add to our loyal customer base and boost our sales numbers, going forward.”

Indian market diaspora and audience
As India is a price-sensitive market and more than half of the population of the country comprises of “masses”, every company has to come up with innovative ideas to entice its customers. Gionee as a brand has always carried a youth-centric approach, and for a better customer connect its special focus is to come up with the best model design and modify according to the needs of the users. According to Shrivastava, some of the salient features that people are looking forward to, are good battery life, good front camera, strong build and amazing graphics and the growing competition in the market is creating too much choices for customers to choose from.
Recently, the company has came on board with its #Selfiestan nationwide campaign featuring Alia Bhatt as a brand Ambassador to launch the first flagship product of the year – A1, Gionee to reach out to every last customer in the country. With the same objective, the smartphone giant has also signed up with celebrities like Diljit Dosanjh, Dulquer Salmaan and Shruti Hasan as their regional Brand Ambassadors.

Alongside this, the brand has also announced its association with the Bengaluru franchise of the IPL, “Royal Challengers Bangalore” who are already principal sponsor of the “Kolkata Knight Riders”, thus becoming the first brand ever to sponsor front jerseys of two IPL teams in the same edition.

Competiton and strategy 
As an organization, Shrivastava says, they do not believe in following trends. To be different and disruptive from others, the company considers it to be their core strategy. According to him, in the last few years, when brands were replicating the western markets and propagating the online sales model, it continued expanding their on-ground retailer base, soon becoming one of the top offline retail smartphone brands in India. “Today, over 99% of our revenue comes from the offline retail model. We treat smartphones as an extension of a user’s taste, personality, and daily requirements. Therefore, with changing times, the features and looks also need to change constantly. This is why our phones are intuitive, future ready, stylish and durable. We are proud to be credited with bringing in the world’s slimmest phone, the biggest battery phone, the best Android camera and much more to India,” says Srivastava. 

Shrivastava added, “We have recently clocked 1.25 crore customers in India and we will look at expanding our retail presence in the country with establishing 500 brand stores by March 2018 from 100 at present. We are also looking at opening 650 exclusive service centres, out of which 35 will be Premium Exclusive Service Centres by the end of 2017 from 550 currently. Our brand’s focus will be to ensure that every customer gets a 360-degree experience with our product, retail and customer service.”

Contribution in Make in India
Gionee is planning to set up an end-to-end manufacturing unit in Faridabad, Northern India. It will also be investing Rs.500 crore on this plant which will have a capacity of 30 million units spread across 50 acres and should be operational in about two years which will tap into the demand in India as well as act as an export hub to serve markets like Africa and South East Asia.