Fast Track Comm to invest $100 mn in handset biz

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Fast Track Communications, owner of Lemon mobile phone brand, has plans to invest $100 million globally, over a period of three years, to set up manufacturing plants, product design centres and marketing activities.

“We have come up with the game plan of three years. Our target is to be among top 5 brands in this period with a market share of at least seven per cent globally, and 20 per cent among competitive segments. We have plans to invest $100 million over these years,” said IB Mehra, executive advisor, Fastrack Communications, while announcing the launch of Lemon Twist range of applications on Lemon IQ505 here today.

The company is in the process to set up a manufacturing plant in Uttaranchal and will start production from the third quarter of this year.

“At this plant we will start with assembling 20 per cent of handsets that are to be sold in India. By 2011, we will ramp up the production between 30 to 40 per cent of handsets that will be sold in the country,” said Sandeep Muhsran, director, Fastrack Communications.

Incidentaly, the latest V&D100 Indian Telecom Survey had said that Indian handset brands grabbed 14 per cent market share in the country, and that Nokia is losing market share.

This plan to set up manufacturing facility in India by the company is prompted by the recent restriction on the imports of telecom equipment.

“We have set up the manufacturing plant seeing the current scenario in the country. It will help us in case the government plans to impose high duty on imports. Also we cannot predict on the future of imports as political relationship between India and China are not very stable,” observed Muhsran.

The company registered its manufacturing plan with Uttaranchal before March 31, 2010 and is entitled to get tax benefit under the state policy.

Fastrack Communications is planning to launch online application store in four to six months.

For its application, Lemon Twist, Fastrack Communications has tied up with various third-party application provider like Atom for m-Commerce, Mapmyindia for maps on mobile, Sanptu for social networking, Nimbuzz for online chat and buzz-in-town for information on events in the city.