Micromax Informatics

Micromax Informatics - the Indian mobile device manufacturer. The product portfolio of the company for August, 2015 includes phones with two SIM- cards, Android- smartphones tablets TVs, chargers, portable columns, memory cards and earphones. Micromax developed a set of innovations, many of which were for the first time presented at the market of mobile devices, including: phone with the powerful battery working up to 30 days; the first phone developed especially for women; mobile phones with universal remote control and other developments.

Performance Indicators

Micromax began the work in India, and according to the report of IDC for the 3rd quarter 2013, the company is the second most popular smartphone manufacturer in this country after Samsung. The Micromax smartphones are also on sale in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Burma.

In an interval of 2008-2014 revenue of the company grew from $100 million to $1.2 billion.

Micromax achieved good results as in the house market, and abroad. For example, in Russia, according to the research GfK, the share of the company in sales of mobile devices grew from 1.2% in January, 2015 to 4.3% in June. In the Indian market the producer controls 16.7% of sales amount of smartphones, data of Counterpoint Research for the second quarter 2015 demonstrate.

Business in Russia and the CIS

2018

According to GfK, in January, 2018 the share of Micromax in the Russian market made 1.8% in piece expression.

2017: Micromax enters the market of Georgia

The Indian smartphone manufacturer of Micromax announced in February the beginning of sales of the mobile devices in Georgia. As told CNews in the company, the Georgian trading house "Goletiani" specializing in sale of the mobile devices confirmed with own guarantee of the company will become the official partner of Micromax in the country.

Smartphones of the company based on the Android Marshmallow 6.0 operating system, for example, of Canvas Pace 2 Plus (Q479) or Bolt Supreme 6 (Q409) and also other devices are available to residents of Georgia. Micromax will offer also mobile phones which already won popularity in Russia and India.

"We are glad to an opportunity to enter the market of Georgia and to begin cooperation with Goletiani trading house. Micromax is going to acquaint residents of Georgia with our best models and to offer them high-quality reliable smartphones at the affordable price. Advantages of our devices were already estimated by users worldwide. Georgia is for us extremely attractive market, we expect to be fixed here seriously and for a long time", - the head of Micromax in Russia and the CIS countries Ramnik Kokhli told.

Structures of Micromax will be available in own salons of Goletiani trading house and also in dealer shops in the largest cities of Georgia - Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Rustavi, Batumi, Telavi, Gurdzhaani, Lagodekhi and Martvili.

Micromax is also provided in such countries as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan.

2014: Start of sales

In January, 2014 officially announced Micromax entry into the Russian market. VVP Group which is engaged in distribution and logistics in the market of cellular communication became the exclusive partner of Micromax in Russia in this direction. According to Ramnik Kokhli (Ramnik Singh Kohli), the chief representative of Micromax in Russia and the CIS, VVP Group will implement structures of Micromax through all existing partners, including federal and regional networks, operators, shops of home appliances, computer shops and other sales points.

Ramnik Kokhli on the presentation of start of sales in Moscow

Service infrastructure of the company is already completely ready to service of the Russian buyers, representatives of Micromax claim. Devices will service in 60 existing service centers in different regions of the country.

In further plans of the company, according to Ramnik Kokhli, opening of the branded shops and own service centers. They will appear in July, 2014 — by this time the company is going to catch considerable user audience. At the end of 2014 Micromax is going to enter the four of the largest players in the Russian market.

The partnership agreement is already signed also with the Russian company Ivi.ru which develops service of legal online video. On the Micromax smartphones deliverable at Russia, the corresponding mobile application is pre-installed.

Similar format of partnership at the Indian vendor and with Odnoklassniki: mobile application of this social network is pre-installed on the Canvas Social smartphones. Other details of the partnership agreement in Odnoklassniki were not disclosed.

One of founders of Rakhul Sharma company (Rahul Sharma) noted that for promotion of devices in the Russian market the company will use the same strategy which helped to become it the second most popular smartphone manufacturer in the Indian market (after Samsung). An important part of this strategy is cooperation with telecom operators.

Rakhul Sharma on the presentation of start of sales in Russia.

Earlier Micromax cooperated with MTS India at release of the smartphone with two sim cards of Micromax Canvas Blaze — it was delivered from 2 GB of pre-paid mobile traffic, 1 thousand minutes of free talks in MTS network and an opportunity to talk free of charge 120 minutes to subscribers of other telecom operators of India. Partnership of Micromax is possible also with Russian MTS. According to the representative of mobile operator, from Micromax specific proposals about cooperation in Russia did not arrive, however the companies conduct negotiations. MTS is interested in work with the Indian smartphone manufacturer^[1].

At the first stage of the shelf of the Russian shops will be replenished with 13 Micromax smartphones from a flagman line of Canvas and the budget Bolt series. So, the Canvas Knight A350 smartphone with Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) will be one of the advanced models of the Indian vendor available in Russia. It has 5-inch Full the HD screen, the eight-nuclear processor with a frequency of 2 GHz, the main and frontal cameras from 16 MT and 5-megapixel respectively, and accumulator capacity in the device is 2350 mAh.

Amit Matkhur and Ramnik Kokhli on the presentation of start of sales in Russia

The Russian users will also be able to purchase a hybrid of the notebook and tablet under the name Canvas LapTab P9 which can be loaded with Windows 8 or Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean). The device is the 10-inch tablet to which Bluetooth keyboard is connected.

Micromax already started the Russian version of the official site and opened online store in which for January, 2014 only 6 mobile devices are provided. The prices of them vary from 990 to 4990 rub. However devices from a flagman line will be for certain more expensive. In foreign online store Micromax the most expensive is the Canvas Turbo A250 smartphone worth 17,490 rupees (9.6 thousand rub) now.

"The wide product range in different price segments shows that we want to interest various audience" — Rakhul Sharma notes.

Besides, in January, 2014 devices, according to information on the website, can be bought on credit with an interest rate of 35.1% per annum and a repayment period from 3 to 24 months — it is provided by Tinkoff Credit Systems bank.

History

2015: Development of corporate OS

On August 22, 2015 it became known that Micromax develops own operating system which should help the Indian company to be selected against the background of the escalating competition in the market of smartphones.

In an interview to the The Economic Times edition one of founders of Micromax Vikas Jain reported that the company conducts development of a software platform based on Android technologies.

Micromax develops own operating system which should help the Indian company to be selected against the background of the escalating competition in the market of smartphones

"At us perfectly it turns out to cooperate, and we do not want to invent a wheel" — the Jain told, having let know that Micromax intends not to separate from Android, and to support leadership of this operating system, developing its new opportunities on different devices.

The first Micromax smartphones using the new platform of the company should appear in the market by the end of 2015, their cost will be low, the cofounder of the Indian brand assured. At the same time the operating system is going to be used not only in mobile devices, but also in TVs and wearable electronics. In other words, Micromax prepares the platform which by analogy with Windows is intended for a broad spectrum of devices.

The former top manager of Amazon Ashish Agraval (Ashish Agrawal) who held a post of the technical director in Micromax directs the project of creation of corporate OS. He will supervise development of services and applications for a new product.

Micromax recognizes that demand for gadgets is saturated therefore the company sees the further growth of business in software development and services through which she hopes to increase loyalty to the brand.^[2]

2014: Yu brand exit

In 2014 Micromax together with the American company Cynogen began to release the smartphones under the Yu brand managed by an alternative firmware of CyanogenMod which is constructed on the Android operating system. Besides, the Indian vendor started investment into the startups developing any Internet services which Micromax connects to the smartphones.

Notes