John Sculley, the former chief of Apple, is funding a venture for India known as Inflexionpoint that aims to launch low-cost smartphones in India that will be priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 8,000. These smartphones are expected to debut in India next month. The Inflexionpoint will be launching its phones in India under the Obi Mobiles brand. These phones will be sourced from China, as is being done by most of the Indian phone companies. However, Sculley has roped in highly experienced Indian professionals who have vast experience of mobile phones business to leverage the domestic market.Among them is Ajay Sharma, who headed smartphone division of Micromax, has been appointed CEO of Obi Mobiles.
Despite John Sculley’s vast experience at Apple, the market scenario in India is entirely different from US. It is true that for this reason, John Sculley has roped in experienced Indian team. But the Indian handsets maker like Micromax,Karbonn,Lava,Spice and of late Lenovo of China have vast variety of budget smartphone. All the Indian companies have been getting their devics manufactured in China under their R&D supervision. The Indian brands have been established in India and they can be seen in retail stores across India. These Indian companies are on launching spree of budget smrtphones. For instance, in the last few days, Lava has launched four smartphones in sub Rs. 8,000 category.
In order to be successful in India, where there is cut-throat competition, Obi Mobiles will have to spend a lot on marketing and bring out various smartphones in different price-point. The coming month will be very interesting from the perspective of those Indian customers who go in for economical Chinese phones as there will be one more Chinese brand in India with the expertise of a highly experienced person who had headed once technology giant of the world – Apple.
Let us see how the previous experience of John Sculley at Apple translates into success in his India venture!
