“111 days Dual Warranty is our USP”: Pankaj Anand, Jivi Mobiles

In an exclusive interaction with PC Quest Pankaj Anand, CEO, Jivi Mobiles highlights the business plans and future launches for the Indian brand

Pankaj Anand, CEO, Jivi Mobiles

You are now coming into smartphone space, what will be the product portfolio?
I am extremely happy to say that soon we are going to launch 4G smartphones. And it will be very different. Prices are not yet decided but our phones will be in between 3,000 - 7,000 range. What we are aiming is to give consumers a 4G Phone @ 3,000. As GST has come into play now there will be pan India soft launch to take the feedback of consumers first. It will help in analyzing the present status of smartphone market and in turn our big launches in future will be depend on the results which are already lined up. Another thing, our USP will be the dual warranty. In this feature we will provide 111 days warranty period to our customers. If any problem occurs we will replace the handset free of cost if required or we will replace the screen if it is broken. These warranty will be active for 111 days from the date of purchasing along with the standard 1 year manufacturer warranty.

What will be the trends you are keeping in mind for the launch of smartphones?
Our smartphones will be affordable with new innovations. First thing which will separate us from others is the warranty we are giving to our customers that is 111 days dual warranty with one year manufacturer warranty.  Second thing is our price range which will
not make consumers to think twice before buying and the last but not the least is our specifications. For example - In our smartphones we will have 5 megapixel camera where our competitors are giving
2 megapixel or VGA camera. And we are also giving some accessories like Protection covers, flaps, tempered glass etc, which help our customers to safeguard their phones and no need to buy and search for these things in market. Next thing our company is focusing on is ‘Made in India’. We have our own manufacturing unit in Mahipalpur, Delhi with a capacity to manufacture 7 lakh handsets per month, right now we are manufacturing 4 - 4.5 lakh per month and our plan is to reach 1 Million by the end of year in which 30% will be smartphones and 70% will be feature phones.

What is the portfolio for feature phones?
So, in feature phone categories we have around 25 models in the portfolio which comes into price range of 700 - 1,600. Still our major share market depends on feature phones. Tier2 and tier3 consumers still use feature phones as they are cheap, have good battery life and robust to use. We will continue to be in the feature phone segment and apart from the Delhi manufacturing unit we are setting up a new unit in Lonavla near Mumbai to cater further needs.

What is your marketing strategy now?
We are doing 360° now, we are covering ATMs with print ads, we are doing TVC, we are doing road shows and also having Mobile vans for advertisements. We are also focusing towards BTL activities which will help us in getting more attention from consumers. Our strength is our price and channel ecosystem. Our rapport with channel partners is more than 5-6 years old and they trust us. Even at the time of GST we told our dealers that if there is any ups and downs due to the tax shift, the company will take care of it they do not have to worry about it. We promote our products offline but some distributors also sell the products online so it automatically
becomes online. We are more focused to do offline business; as our target market is not so familiar with online. Also, we are planning to launch a product beyond our normal range that will be around 10, 000 and will be available exclusively online.

Beside this, the company has also roped in Hindi film actor Irrfan Khan as its brand ambassador as he is the person of the masses. His down-to-earth image of being the man-next-door has gelled very well with Indians, making him the ideal pick to endorse our products. The association will definitely take the brand closer to the consumers. He will also be a part of various customer engagement activities that the brand has planned during the year.

How the sales have been in last 5 years?
As I mentioned earlier, we started from North region and later expanded in East, West and South. North contributes to 50% of the total sales and rest 50% is from other regions. After GST implementation, we are looking forward to expand into West region too as it is a quite large market. Mostly semi urban and rural areas are our targets because in those areas people mostly use feature phones which is our main segment and our most distributors are present in rural and Semi urban areas.

What are number of service centers you have pan India?
We have about 650 service centers pan India; we have a policy that wherever we make a distributor within the radius of 30 Km we make a service center. So, right now we have more than 570 authorized distributors across country. In future, we will definitely add more distributors after the launch of smartphones. We are also planning to make 1000 distributors as soon as possible and our team has already started working in all the markets for this.