PC vendor Acer Inc (宏碁) has put its smartphone business in the Indian market on hold, mainly due to intensified competition among peers and New Delhi’s recent demonetization policy, company officials said.
“We are slowing our pace in India in terms of smartphone business,” an Acer investor relations official said by telephone.
The announcement came as Acer’s managing director in India, Harish Kohli, was yesterday quoted by the Business Standard as saying that the company found it difficult to provide quality products in a “price-sensitive” market like India.
Kohli said the dynamics of the smartphone market there might turn out to be a “risky game,” as most competitors in India are introducing handsets at cheaper prices rather than focusing on quality.
The Acer official said New Delhi’s Nov. 9 decision to remove 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee (US$7.37 and US$14.75 at current exchange rates) banknotes from circulation has slowed down business activities and affected Acer’s smartphone business.
Acer restarted its smartphone business in India in December 2014 under the the guidance of S.T. Liew (劉思泰), former president of Acer’s cloud-computing business Build Your Own Cloud, in a bid to enter the fast-growing smartphone market there.
The firm last year invested in two smartphone manufacturing lines in the nation and has been collaborating with Indian e-commerce operator Flipkart and Amazon.com Inc to sell its handsets.
The suspension of the smartphone business is a setback for the company’s two-year efforts in the Indian market, coming only one month after it stopped selling mid-range handsets in Thailand to focus on entry-level products there.
“We are adjusting our smartphone strategies in various markets. We do not plan to give up on the business,” the official said.
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