Spice Group targets 10M handset sales, partners Huawei

Indian conglomerate Spice Group has partnered China's Huawei Technologies to launch a range of co-branded mobile phones. It expects this to contribute about 10 percent toward its wider sales target of 10 million handsets for the current fiscal year ending June 2013.

Under the partnership, Huawei will provide back-end support such as research and development and in return would leverage Spice’s stores, said Bhupendra Kumar Modi, Spice Group chairman, in a report Thursday by Hindu Business Line. 

The company expects to sell one million handsets under the "S Huawei" brand in the current fiscal year, and launch 7 to 10 co-branded handsets soon. Spice has also tied up with Google for Android handsets, which it plans to sell around 1.5 million 2G Wi-Fi and 3G units.

"These partnerships are key drivers to expand our global footprints. Today, more than 50 per cent of the revenue comes from the international market. In Indonesia, we have crossed US$1 billion revenue as of June 30,” Modi said in the article.

Overall, Spice is targeting handset sales of 10 million units in the current fiscal year, including 7.5 million 2G handsets across domestic and international handset business, noted news site Medianama. The company sells around half a million handsets every month, according to Business Line.

The company also plans to expand its number of stores to 5,000 from 1,250, in markets where it is already present including India, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and parts of Africa. Facing severe competition in the domestic market, Indian phonemakers have been increasingly venturing overseas for growth opportunities.