“Nobody Can Match Our Pricing”- Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, TCL Alcatel

In one-on-one with PC Quest Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, TCL Alcatel talks about changing trends in mobile products and why company is focused on tablet portfolio.

TCL Alcatel recently launched a new tablet ‘A3 10’ at Rs 9,999 in India which is now available on Flipkart.

The 4G/LTE device is powered by 1.1 GHz quad-core processor alongside 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM storage, which can be further expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. It runs on Android Nougat operating system.

Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, TCL Alcatel

The new ‘A3 10’ is designed to provide our users with a complete immersive experience. The tablet comes with an array of features, that are unprecedented at this price and shall change the shape of this segment entirely.”

The tablet with 10-inch IPS display also sports 5MP primary camera and 2MP front camera along with 4600mAh non-removable battery.

What is the number of TCL Alcatel products especially mobile phones available in the market?

Right now, we have 6 mobile phones in the market out of which 4 are available online with flipkart and 2 are available offline. The price range starts from`4,500 (4G phone 5 inch) and goes up to `16,500 (Idol series) Idol 4 is exclusively available on flipkart.

In Indian market, we are very focused in the tablet category and we have taken no. 2 at global position in one category. In windows category we are No. 1. In android based tablets we are at No. 3 position and for less than $200 range of tablets we are No. 4. And all the rankings are global.

In future, we will be continuing to launch more products in tablet category.

That means you are planning to launch more tablets?

Yes, We will be doing so in future, for example we have  recently launched A310. for this product we will introduce a bluetooth keyboard in next 3 months. In the upcoming  festive season, our plans are to launch new products in Windows 2 in 1 category. This is in state of arts and prices are not decided yet. And this too will be available exclusively on Flipkart.

Why only Flipkart? Why not offline channels?

We prefer online channel, this is the part of our GTM strategy for sales. And everybody knows that tablet market is pre-staminate globally. Lots of people are now moving online primarily because of the large range of selection and they are not afraid.

In India, what are the trends in purchase you are seeing?

Already, markets are seeing so much changes in purchasing power of people. So, in my opinion the traction is almost led by metro’s, which is an overall e-commerce phenomena as well. And the top 10 cities are contributing almost 65% of our sales. For instance, people are there who love tablets but are using phablets due to the fact they are bigger and could be used as a calling device too.

That is how we see the entire tablet series growing. We have close to 50% share coming from fablets in our overall portfolio. 7” model is primarily used for media consumption, which is kind of geo-agnostic. So that’s how the trend has been. If we talk about trends, screen size is the big trend these days and it is also reflects in online purchase. In 2016, our portfolio share has grown 2% and this year we have seen another 5% increase. So, screen size does matter to us. Seeing the trends, for us we are focused on 10” screen models in the portfolio.

Your presence is primarily online, how GST will impact the e-commerce?

It is too soon to say anything, however there is 1% extra tax which has been imposed additional on e-commerce. And we are waiting for complete guidelines.

But, I don’t foresee any challenges respect to our products and e-commerce. We have the range of pricing and selection that no brands could match. GST, in long term is a good onus for us whether it is pricing, marketing or e-commerce.

I guess, there will be some boulders at start but it will be a smooth ride after a while. So, we are okay with GST.