HMD Global, which sells Nokia brand of mobile phones, is planning to take on the Chinese smartphone majors in the ₹7,000 to ₹14,000 price band with the launch of its latest budget smartphone, said a senior official.
“This is an attractive and competitive segment with top positions occupied by Xiaomi and Vivo,” said Sridhar T.S., general manager, sales, south and west, HMD Global.
“The global market for such phones is estimated to be about 45 crore units and is owned by one-third of the population,” Mr. Sridhar told the media.
He also announced the roll out of Nokia 4.2 smartphone in the Indian market priced at ₹10,990. It’s an Android One phone based on the Android Pie OS. The phone will go on sale from May 21. However, some of the retail outlets such as Poorvika and Big C would start selling from May 14 onwards.
This phone has artifical intelligence-powered features such as adaptive battery, a dedicated Google Assistant button, biometric face unlock, Android 9 Pie, two major OS updates and notification switch on the side.
Mr. Sridhar said that Nokia disappeared from the market, for a while, after being in the top league from 2008 to 2011. Then, it returned during June 2017 with the help of HMD.
According to him, during 2017 and 2018, Nokia ranking improved from 17 to 8 in smartphones and eight to four in features phone. It was the most trusted brand after Samsung.
“Indian is a key market for HMD. We came back as there was a demand for our products. Our aim is to break into the top five market in sales. We sell our products mostly through retail outlets and online is very small,” he said.
