Intex smartphones to ride digital services wave in FY 2017

By Nandita Singh

BENGALURU: High performance processors, camera, screen size… the smartphone is no longer about hardware. The next level of smartphone growth will be driven by use cases and experiences that drive customer engagement. Intex Technologies, which is emerging as a key player in the mobile ecosystem, is busy ingraining this shift in its business model.

A low and mid range price player in mobile phones segment Intex Technologies in FY 2015-16 had edged its way into top 3 mobile phones’ company list in the Voice&Data India Telecom Industry Study released in August 2016.

“Our goal is to create engagement for the customer with brand Intex,” says Vineet Singh, Head of Digital Services at Intex Technologies. It is no secret that the next 300 million users that are set to get smartphone access for the first time in the next three years will be from tier II & III cities and will be native language speakers primarily, with English perhaps only as their second or third language, if at all.

Keeping this in view, Intex is ensuring that the smartphone is customized to suit its next set of customers with an on-boarding experience that makes for a smooth shift to digital life and continued engagement with Intex digital services. The company recently announced that some of its models will be on Indus OS, which is an indigenously developed regional operating system supporting 12 languages, with its own app store  -- improving device adaptability to regional language apps.

What is Indus OS?

Indus OS is the world’s first Regional Operating System developed to meet the needs of the emerging market’s regional language speaking citizens through simplification, language technology and content. The Indus OS currently supports 12 major languages spoken widely in the region.

With a vision is to digitally connect the next 1 billion people in the emerging markets, Indus OS recently raised $5 million series A funding led by Omidyar Network and  is angel funded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal from Snapdeal, Amit Gupta and Naveen Tiwari from Inmobi and Pranay Chulet from Quikr. Indus OS has the second largest market-share in India (Q3 2016) according to Counterpoint Research.

Digital Services  Push

Work on integrating digital services in the Intex devices has been on from the last one year, however, most of these were third party applications driven by customer demand, informs Singh. The focus now is on being pro-active in integrating digital services. At the digital services unit Singh is at the center of activity. “Pre-loading third party application solutions on the device was but a small piece of value add that we provided, now we are working on long term solutions for customer engagement, and in the process we are diversifying from a hardware company to a solution-oriented business,” says Singh.

In the last one year, driven by market dynamics Intex has identified areas where applications will add value. The company has tied up with Tata mRupee for mobile wallet in the payments space and a couple others in healthcare, education, and entertainment. Intex is also working on tying up content partnerships and has put in place technology partnerships that will enable it to deliver Intex branded applications & services to be embedded in Intex devices, along with the third party bundle that the company will continue to offer. “As we realized payments will be the pivot of mobile ecosystem, we closed on payments partner Tata mRupee solution since we wanted to get that in place before moving on to other utilities that will follow in due course,” says Singh.

Intex Digital Services as well as its Indus OS devices will be launched in India in the first quarter of FY 2017. The company intends to follow consumer behaviour very closely for its next round of growth. “Right from deeply integrated pre-loaded solutions in devices to third party hyperlocal AI-based applications, we will follow the consumer -- offering just about everything possible via the mobile device,” says Singh.

Narendra Bansal led company, Intex Technologies, that has its roots in IT peripherals trading has come a long way and is readying for another metamorphosis with an ambition to make Intex a household name, in the face of mighty competitive and yet evolving smartphone market in India. Seventy five percent of Intex overall revenue comes from mobile phones which comprises feature phones and smartphones. The company has five manufacturing facilities in India, three of which are located in Noida, and one each at Jammu in J&K and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.