The domestic handset maker, Micromax has recently announced that it is aiming to sell 6 million units of its latest Bharat series phones in next 5-6 months in India. Shubhajit Sen, who is Chief Marketing Officer at Micromax, told ETTelcom that the company is about to launch two new phones called as the Bharat 1 and Bharat 2 in the coming weeks.
The Micromax Bharat 2 will be launched in about two weeks and the Micromax Bharat 1 will join the series later. Furthermore, the company will also offer Bharat 3. The company is currently working on a technology which will attract the telecom operators in India. Apart from this, no further information is received yet.
The new Micromax mobiles will be manufactured in India as open devices and will not come with any co-branding. The Bharat 2 will be the priced below Rs 3000. It will also be the first Google-approved smartphone with 4G VoLTE connectivity under Rs 3000. On the other hand, the Bharat 1 will be the first feature phone from Micromax to come with 4G VoLTE connectivity at a price of Rs 1999.
These Micromax mobiles will take the mobiles banking to the masses. It may come bundled with digital wallets service by Transerv and mVisa for making offline transactions through mobile. Further, Sen added that the company is focussing on the value addition features for payments.
The drive to offer 4G VoLTE mobiles at affordable prices began when the Government of India held a meeting in January with Indian smartphone makers including Lava, Micromax, Intex, and Karbonn. During the meeting, the authority asked these companies to manufacture 4G VoLTE devices which will be priced below Rs 2000.
Talking about the 4G VoLTE feature phone segment, Lava had hit the first round of fire last month with its Lava 4G Connect M1 feature phone for a price of Rs 3,333. As per Lava, the 4G Connect M1 is the first feature phone to offer higher network speeds. Apparently, Micromax has entered into the 4G VoLTE feature phone space, it will be interesting to see whether other manufacturers launches 4G VoLTE mobiles at an affordable price point in coming months.
