Exclusive: Zopo to launch Color series smartphones priced under Rs 8,000 in India

| Updated: Friday, October 16, 2015, 20:07 [IST]

Chinese smartphone company Zopo is planning to launch a new series of smartphones in India. The company on Thursday launched the Speed 7 Plus smartphone, under its Speed series, for Rs 14,999 in India. This is the second smartphone that has been introduced in the country since the company's debut here back in August, with the launch of the Speed 7 smartphone. Zopo partnered with Adcom for its operations and distributions in India, and has tied up with Amazon.in for selling their phone inline.

Exclusive: Zopo to launch Color series smartphones in India

At the sideline of the Speed 7 Plus launch, S. Bhatia Director Adcom, told GizBot that "Zopo is now planning to launch the company's budget smartphone series, the Color, in India." Zopo has three smartphone series, namely the Speed, Flash and Colour in China. The Speed has high-end device offerings from the company, while the color is mainly targeted at price conscious consumers.

Bhatia said that Zopo is will be introducing three models of Color smartphones, including the Color C and Color E, with their price ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000 in India. "These are feature rich smartphones that will be priced aggressively to compete against others in market, and will mainly be targeted at the youngsters and students." These smartphones are already available in China.

These smartphones are expected to be launched ahead of Diwali, though the company doesn't expect much traction for these phones during the festive season. "We will be bringing the Color smartphones before Diwali, though we may not be able catch the Diwali hype for them", Bhatia added.

So far, Zopo has sold 5000 units of the Speed 7 smartphone in India, and is hoping to sell 10,000 units of the Speed 7 Plus in a month's time. Bhatia says that as a debutant company, they knew that their sales will not go very high in the initial months, but are hoping to sell significant units of their smartphone in coming months. The company is also working on its next flagship smartphone, which it plans to launch in China in January, around the Chinese New Year.

The company partnered with Amazon.in for exclusive selling of their Speed smartphones, though they may not sell the Color smartphone via Amazon alone. Zopo initially tied up with Amazon.in in order to promote their smartphone in the country. However, the company will now be selling smartphones via offline channels as well to reach out to the masses.

Zopo Wearable in India

On its plans to bring Zopo wearable devices to India any time soon, Bhatia said that the company sells wearable in other markets, but it does not plan to introduce their smart time pieces to India, any time soon. "Zopo is a two month old baby in India. In such a short span of time, we cannot bring our wearables to the market. We want to first establish our mobile business in the country, and will then think of adding wearable devices to our portfolio of products for India", Bhatia said.

Local manufacturing of products:

Speaking about their plans on local production of smartphone under the Make In India initiative, Bhatia said that "Right now, there are a lot of players that work on the basis of contract manufacturing. We too are looking forward to get in to a partnership with one such company to be competitive in the market. By producing our devices locally, we can cut down the prices of our smartphone significantly."