Dubai: Indian mobile phone manufacturer Lava is trying to differentiate from the crowd with a focus on privacy, especially for the defence and energy sector in the Middle East.
The company launched seven smartphone models in Dubai on Sunday, including the second generation V2s+ phone without cameras and GPS.
David Yang, general manager for overseas business at Lava International, told Gulf News that V2s+is an update of Lava Iris X8S launched last November, and it is designed exclusively for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Middle East region where privacy and confidentiality is a great issue.
“Many workers just deposit their cameras with the security in the oil and gas industry, military and police, making them inaccessible too. We have sold more than 60,000 Iris X8S units in the region,” he said.
In 2015, the company has sold more than 500,000 mobile phones in total in the GCC (excluding Saudi Arabia) with 72 per cent of the sales coming in from the UAE, 17 per cent from Qatar, six per cent from Kuwait, three per cent from Bahrain and two per cent from Oman.
The company, which is focusing on sub $300 (Dh1,100) price range, is where the tough competition is taking place.
According to Nabila Popal, research manager for mobile handsets at research firm International Data Corporation, phones priced less than $300 now make up 52 per cent of the GCC’s smartphone market.
Yang said that big brands were not able to capture the market share like Lava did in just one-and-a-half years in the UAE.
“You need to cater to the changing demand of customers; you cannot just keeping loving and praising yourself. You need to have different strategies for different markets,” he said.
The phones launched by Lava range between Dh199 and Dh499.
“2015 was a good year for us in India as well as in the Gulf countries. In India, we sold an average of 2.2 million mobile phones, including 600,000 smartphones. Out of India, we sold an average of one million phones per month,” he said.
Ajay Pathak, head of mobility and solutions at Jumbo Electronics, main distributor for Lava in the GCC, expects around 75 per cent growth in shipments this year. The first half has been promising and has faced supply issues. Customer acceptance has been very good.
The company sold 35 million units in total in 2015, including 10.7 million overseas sales, and achieved revenues of $1.1 billion in fiscal 2015, registering more than 100 per cent growth over fiscal 2014.
