Former Apple CEO John Sculley's Obi Mobiles to go global next year

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 26 Juli 2014 | 21.43

NEW DELHI: Former Apple CEO John Sculley, who recently launched low-cost smartphone brand Obi in India, plans to take his products to other emerging markets next year after gaining a firm foothold in the local market.

"Our aspirations are to build an international brand with India being the beachhead and to go to all of the emerging markets, learning from our experience here with differentiation around branding and marketing," said Sculley, 75, who famously forced co-founder Steve Jobs out of Apple in 1985.

"We want to be a fast follower in the other markets, but India has to set the pace. In 2015, we will be expanding rapidly world over," he said.

Launched earlier this year, Obi Mobiles will not directly compete with Apple that sells premium devices, but will focus on entry-level smartphone market with Android-based handsets priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000.

Analysts expect 80 million smartphones to be sold in the country this calendar, almost double the number sold in 2013. Sub$200, or about Rs 12,000 models account for 80% of smartphone sales in the country.

Sculley , who was Apple CEO from 1983 to 1993, told ET that Obi was geared to compete in this "commodity market" through advertising, marketing and point-of-sale campaigns, where social media will play a key role. He expects Obi Mobiles to account for around 5% share of the Indian smartphone market. "Culturally, India doesn't give permission to fail," he said.

Before joining Apple, Sculley had a 15 year stint at PepsiCo and is credited with creating the `cola wars' through aggressive marketing to challenge Coca-Cola.

At a time when rivals such as Karbonn, Celkon, China's Xiaomi and Finnish Jolla are launching devices online, Obi Mobiles has decided to focus more on traditional distribution and retail channels in the country and in building after-sales services. It already has 95 service centres.

Sculley said Obi Mobiles plans to launch long-term evolution (LTE) 4G devices after service providers build a critical mass of 4G subscribers.

The company is keen to work with wireless operators as well, he said.

Sculley also said he was looking at acquisitions of credit finance companies in Asia through his Singapore-based IT supply chain firm Inflexionpoint, which owns Obi Mobiles.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/followceleb.cms?alias=Obi Mobiles,John Sculley,Apple,android


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