Mobile mania: China enters the fray

NEW DELHI: Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Bird has announced its entry in the Indian market with four GSM handsets. Bird claims to be the largest mobile phone manufacturer in China and is said to enjoy a 15 percent market share in China.

Bird International’s Director Jean Alexis Chatelain introduced the company’s road map for India. Bird has appointed Agrani Convergence and CD services as its authorized distributors in India and Agrani Techno-Aid as its service partner for India.



Chatelain said, "India is the second largest growing mobile market in both the GSM and CDMA networks. We want to sell anywhere between 200,000 to 300,000 handsets by the end of this fiscal. For this we will have a large range and technically strong products."

Talking about worldwide plans, the company which had a turnover of $ 845 million, now wants to reach $ 1.5 billion in this fiscal and wants to ship 15 million units compared to six million this year.



Priced from anything between Rs 5,000 to Rs 12,000, Bird will start with only four models in India and gradually introduce more models. Bird also plans to get PDAs by the next month-end and CDMA phones. Chatelain said that the company may also look into setting up an IDC in India.

(CNS)