Tell us something about the Teleecare Group and the genesis of Zen Mobiles? What is the significance of the name ‘Zen’?
Teleecare is basically a parent company and has been there in this trade of distribution of mobile phones for the last 15 years. We have been associated with brands, like Nokia and Samsung either at the regional or state-level or national-level. We have mastered good experience in this line of distribution. Then around three years back, we realized that we need to expand our horizons and look into other directions. The next logical step was to create our own brand as we already have a good team working behind us. We started looking for the right partners and OEM suppliers to work with and also started our own backend research, before we finally launched ‘Zen’ mobiles.
The term ‘Zen’ is taken from the word ‘citizen’. The philosophy behind naming our brand as Zen is that we want to associate our mobile phones as the phones for every citizen of the country. We have certain responsibilities and obligations towards the country and our brand gives it back in terms of good services and good products.
How many models do you have? What is the difference between the features in your entry level and the higher end mobile phones?
Currently we have nine models, out of which seven are GSM and two are the CDMA ones. We are launching around two models every month. We have different price categories according to which we have built on features. Our entry level phones are priced around Rs. 1,500-1,800, which are non camera phones with a good battery backup, a flashlight and a colour screen. As you go up the pyramid, there are the entry level camera phones priced between Rs. 2,000 and 2,200 with bigger screen size and with additional features like bluetooth. As you further move up the ladder to Rs.3,000 priced phones, you have the multimedia handsets with MP3 and MP4 features. So our products are positioned in the price range of Rs. 1500-3000 and this is where most of our sales lies. Recently we have launched qwerty keypad phones also. Almost all our phones are dual-sim.
What is your target market vertical? Is it the tier-II, tier-III, metros or a combination of all the three?
We are primarily targeting tier-II and tier III cities. The people in these cities are not brand conscious and price plays a big role for them. They want more and more value for the money that they pay. Here features like loud speaker, torch light, good battery back up are the salient features which are looked for. We have offices in metros as well but in terms of business, we are concentrating more into these smaller cities. After eventually establishing ourselves in the interiors, we will make a mark in the metros.
Give us an idea about your presence across the country.
Currently we have 550 active partners called micro distributors working for us and the number is on a rise as we are launching more and more models on a regular basis. We are thinking of eventually taking this number to 1000 by the end of this financial year (i.e. March 2010). In the last 2 to 3 months, we have started our operations in almost every state with distributors in almost every major states of the country. We have appointed super distributors in these states who oversee the working of the hundreds of distributors under them. Presently, there are around 20 super distributors under which these 550 micro distributors are operational.
What are the market strategies that you have adopted?
Our main marketing strategy has been print. Regional print has a couple of advantages which has helped us reach big figures. It is very well targeted to the specific audience, it helps in conversion of sales, it makes the channel happy and customer enquiries come in which is of a great help. this helps the whole supply chain going. Next, we do a lot of Dealer-distributor meets too wherein we receive feedbacks about what is happening at the ground level and make sure that problems arising at this ground level are never overlooked. If your retailers are happy, your distributors are happy, they will sell your products. At the end of the day, a retailer knows how to make customers switch from 1 brand to another.
What kind of Service support network you have in place?
Service support is a very critical thing not only for us but for every mobile phone brand. Service becomes the biggest agenda for us whenever we are travelling. For this reason, we have established about 100 service centres. But most importantly we have a service centre in almost every state Out of which 26 are company owned and rest are franchisee based. We set up a Service Centre depending on the market size, and the feedback from our super and micro distributors.
Are you looking at tying up with any telecom service provider for the entry level phones who are looking at the rural market?
We have a tie-up with Tata Indicomm. We have a CDMA model bundled with Tata already in the market for the last 4 months and this was one major breakthrough that we had. We are exploring this route further and have a long term vision with TATA. Similar talks are on with a couple of other providers as well.
How do you see the next financial year?
If I talk about volumes, we plan to reach a realistic figure of 3.5 lakhs per month. Also by December we would want to touch a billion handsets mark being sold in India. We have charted out a roadmap wherein a couple of products for the lower end of the pyramid are on the loop, enabling us to reach a landmark. In terms of marketing, we plan to spend about 50 crore rupees in above the line campaign, as brand building becomes very important aspect. When it comes to below the line campaign, dealer-distributor meets would remain the prime focus.
Zen targeting communication needs of Rural India
