iApple Products

How do you see smartphone trends worldwide and how are you positioned?

The smartphone market is showing healthy trends. We have 10% market share globally and somewhere between 5 to 8% share in India.

What is your play in 4G-LTE devices? What are your plans for India?

We are currently focusing on both 3G and 4G-LTE devices in India. We are closely watching the user trends this year and depending on outcome, we may change our strategy in India by bringing in new LTE devices.

Given the policy framework of the new government, are you planning to put up an R&D centre and manufacturing facility in India?

We are an engineering company and do our own design and work with manufacturing partners and suppliers. We are still looking for an appropriate opportunity for partnership. We may not bring R&D together and it would come to India at a later stage.

How do you see the role of affordable devices in the India's rural market?

We have already launched many cost-effective smartphones. We have a wide range of entry-level devices and even have a flagship Zenfone smartphone available at low price.

Smartphone adoption trends are good this year. We are No. 1 in China and No. 2 in the US. In South-East Asia, we were among top 3 in 2014 Q4. In India, we sold 35,000 Zenfone devices in a single day.

We have shipped 1-million Zenfone devices till date that include 2-lakh in India alone in less than a year.

What are your plans for the enterprise business?

At this point of time, we are not focusing on enterprise customers and will continue to focus on consumer business.

How do you see online sales as compared to offline channel model?

We are focusing on the online sales platform. Most of our partners choose to sell products online. We get 90% of our sales happening through online medium while only 10% comes from offline retailers today.