Coolpad India to sell smartphones through offline stores.

China's Coolpad Group Limited has become the latest smartphone maker to broaden its retail strategy in India from online-only and tap into bricks-and-mortar stores for higher sales volumes, saying it aims to sell five million units a year through just the offline channel by 2019.



The company is aiming to cover more than 10 states and is targeting sales volume of one million handsets by establishing 5,000 core shops and 10,000 retail shops by 2017, a statement released on Monday said.

"We foresee our growth in more than 15 states with 3 million in sales volumes by the end of 2018, subsequently, making a nationwide presence with sales volume 5 million annually by 2019, Coolpad India's country manager Mike Wang said in the statement.



The company plans to establish 3,000 shops to showcase its products in the first half of 2017, a period in which it said it will roll out five-six products in different price segments.



"We have the plan to launch a series of products which are only for offline like Mega series will be mainly for offline thereafter, Wang said.



The handset maker has so far been focused on online sales in India through its partnership with Amazon India. The American e-commerce company is now its partner for offline presence as well.



Coolpad is following in the footsteps of home-market rivals such as Xiaomi and LeEco that have also tapped into the offline route after the initial focus on the online channel alone, in a bid to widen its target customer base.

The company's recently launched Note 3S will be available in the offline stores, for which Amazon India will be the national distributor.

Coolpad is working with HCL and Regenersis, which have a total of 370 customer care centres across India. The company already has a strong presence in Delhi-National Capital Region, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

"The Indian market has great scope and Coolpad would like to take advantage of that to develop a story brand recall within our target audience, Syed Tajuddin, CEO, Coolpad India said in the statement.

Tajuddin said the company has sold more than a million smartphones since its entry into India and that is confident that offline presence will contribute majorly to its growth trajectory in India in 2017.

Courtesy:- Gadgetsnow.com