Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday launched its first “affordable” smartphone in India in a bid to enter the nation’s low-priced smartphone market and expand the firm’s reach there.
“Being the third-largest home to smartphone users, India is a critical market for us and we intend to bring cutting-edge products to consumers seeking the power-packed design sensibilities of a high-end smartphone at competitive prices,” Asustek India managing director Peter Chang (張旗浚) said in a statement.
The firm’s newest smartphone, the ZenFone Go, is priced at 7,999 rupees (US$121) and is available at Indian’s e-commerce Web site Flipkart as well as the company’s 120 brick-and-mortar retail stores nationwide, the statement said.
The Taiwanese PC maker launched its high-end handset ZenFone 2 priced at 22,999 rupees for the 4GB version, the mid-end handsets ZenFone Selfie and ZenFone Laser priced between 9,999 rupees and 17,999 rupees in India earlier this year.
With the announcement of the availability of the ZenFone Go, the PC maker now has smartphone products in every price range in the Indian smartphone market.
Chang said the company aims to ship 3 million smartphones to India this year, which is about 2.74 percent of the market share in the nation, with International Data Corp forecasting that 109.44 million handsets would be sold in India this year.
Chang said Asustek aims to achieve a 5 percent market share in India next year.
Asustek chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) last month told reporters that the company plans to launch one or two low-priced ZenFone Go smartphones each year in emerging markets, such as Indonesia, India, Vietnam and Thailand.
“The launch of ZenFone Go could help the company boost smartphone shipments and gain market share,” Shen said. “The affordable product could also complete Asustek’s product lines in those countries.”
Asustek shares dropped 1.05 percent to NT$282 on the local bourse yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX, which lost 2.06 percent.
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