Intex Technologies has diversified its business gradually by enhancing its product portfolio in consumer durables & IT product range. The brand has gained its leadership position across Indian market over the year by offering high quality products at a very affordable price point. Apart from strong channel network, they have been continuously opening Intex exclusive branded stores - ‘Intex Smart World’ as experience zones. Currently they have 130+ stores running across 90+ cities across 26 states. Intex plans to take take it to 250+ in FY 2018-19. Ms. Nidhi Markanday, Director, Intex Technologies gives her insight about current growth and upcoming business plans to boost overall market share.
DT: What have been the crucial milestones of your company during year 2017?
Ms. Nidhi: Year 2017 has been quite eventful for the consumer electronics industry and for Intex itself. Intex Technologies has proved its mettle in the consumer durables space, as recently, according to a GFK report, Intex surpassed Videocon & Micromax in the LED TV business to become the No. 1 Indian LED TV player in the market with a 4% market share. Since the last financial year, Intex has renewed its focus on Consumer Durables with the launch of a plethora of products and taking it further, for FY 2017-18 Intex aims to increase its consumer durables revenue share from the current 15% to 25% by 2018 and up to 50% in the long-term as overall contribution to the company’s revenue.
Intex had sold a record 3 Lakh power banks each in August and September 2017. Intex Technologies became the largest domestic manufacturer of Multimedia Speakers in India, with its Jammu Plant set-up in 2004, ingeniously manufacturing approx 1.5Million speakers that are 100% Make-in-India consumer electronic product. In the mobiles vertical despite the entry of RJio last year and the announcement of demonetization, Intex was able to work around the fast-moving market scenario by being the first domestic smartphone player to have finished its 3G inventory and simultaneously revamped its product portfolio with 4G-Volte models.
DT: How do you define the overall expected growth for smartphone market in India?
Ms. Nidhi: Major trends having emerged in Year 2017 saw the shift in consumer preference for higher MP cameras, dual cameras, higher RAM & ROM for performance & storage capacity. The most recent being preference for bigger screens in mobile phones and moving to Bezel-less screens being popular termed as Infinity Display. The smartphone segment is constantly witnessing innovation in features being offered by brands. In year 2017, industry witnessed an overall market growth of 10% - 15% while the online market grew by 45%-50%. Smartphones segment saw models priced in the range of Rs 8K-15K is driving the market with over 40% share in total sales, owing to high conversion rate by consumers to higher price segment due to effective 0% finance schemes availability.
DT: How do you support Government of India's 'Make-in-India' program?
Ms. Nidhi: In line with the Prime Minister’s Make in India policy, Intex Technologies has been continuously increasing domestic manufacturing. Intex has been manufacturing in India since 2004. The company is manufacturing about 2 million phones per month in India presently. Currently, we have 5 manufacturing facilities – Jammu (1), Baddi in HP (1) and Noida (3) employing over 5000 people. The company is building one of India’s largest manufacturing facility at Kasna, Greater Noida of approx 20 Lac sq ft in size, where mobiles, LED TV, Air Conditioners, Refrigerators will be manufactured. Intex Technologies stepped up its Make in India program recently with the implementation of vertical integration in durables business starting with the launch of ‘LED Panel manufacturing’ of LED TV . The state-of-the-art LED Panels manufacturing set-up in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh will now ingenuously manufacture a critical component - LED panel (imported till now) and its accompanying parts as against just assembling them.
DT: What's your distribution strategy currently in India?
Ms. Nidhi: Our channel strategy has always been a vital part of our growth plans. With a strong network of partners our focus is in reaching the consumers across the country. We have 20,000 retail partners in CDIT business and plans to expand the partner base to 50,000 by next year. We have a running program of Distributors meet & training that perfects them in learning about the science that goes behind creating these products. Providing experience with the expertise of in-shop demonstrators, detailing the product specifications are all a part of selling products via these partners and at Intex we make sure that we give them special schemes to motivate and sustain their performance. Our robust countrywide distribution network and strong retail presence has been our strength. To attain this objective Intex already has 1600+ distributors, 100,000 dealers/retailers overall and have a strong presence in the e-commerce space with several strategic tie-ups. In 2018, we plan on opening an additional 250 + Smart World Stores just so that we are more accessible to our consumers.
DT: How do you assure your customer excellent service support?
Ms. Nidhi: Intex has always been a strong believer of the philosophy ‘Customer is King’. While constantly working towards enhancing, sustaining and reinvigorating customer’s loyalty, one key area of focus for Intex in 2017 is ‘Process for everything and everything with Process’. With this, the company is increasing its focus on measuring customer voice from various channels and developing a systematic mechanism to sustain customer delight. Intex has started a practice of capturing NPS (Net promoter Score) where one can find the number of customers who are loyal and ready to recommend Intex to their friends or colleagues. With such initiatives, we are transforming Intex services as a Brand Differentiator and a sales enabler. Intex Technologies has about 1500+ service centers across India that cater to even the remotest consumer of the country. Intex being an Indian brand has always focused on meeting the expectations of its customers by giving them best of everything and hence after – sales has always been one of the most important concern for us. We are looking at opening many more service centers in the remotest parts of India in 2018.
DT: Please share your current revenue and market growth rate.
Ms. Nidhi: In FY 16-17 Intex Revenue was Rs 4300Cr where Mobile division contributed Rs 3000Cr. We are targeting Rs 6600Cr (approx.) revenue for FY 17-18 with CDIT business will contribute about Rs 2000-2200Cr. We are very much hopeful to attain almost 45% growth in our mobile division.
