Gionee to double marketing budget to Rs 750 crore next fiscal

Smartphone maker Gionee plans to almost double its marketing budget to around Rs 750 crore in 2017-18 from Rs 400 crore in the current fiscal.

"We will be investing up to Rs 750 crore in 2017-18 on marketing. It will be equally used for above the line and below the line marketing activities," Gionee India Country CEO and Managing Director Arvind R Vohra told PTI.

Gionee has roped in Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt and Team India captain Virat Kohli as brand ambassadors.

"There will be some more brand ambassadors that we will be bringing in. The campaign with Virat will start soon," Vohra said.

The Chinese company positions its products as selfie phones and promises long battery life in all its handsets.

"Our strategy is to sell hassle-free phones, which is that the phones should be available close to consumers, he should not run for battery charging, the device should have good processing speed...," Vohra said.

The company today unveiled the Gionee A1 smartphone with 16MP front camera with selfie flash, 4010 mAh battery with quick dual charge feature, 4GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage and support for external storage up to 256 GB. The phone will be available for sale in the first week of April.

"We will target phone buyers in the range of Rs 8,000 - 25,000. The most sweet spot is Rs 15,000-20,000 range where we will have maximum focus. Buyers in the sweet spot range have more than doubled in last two quarters," Vohra said.

Gionee claims to have around 6% share in the smartphone segment in India.

"We are selling half a million smartphones every month. From March onwards, all Gionee phones sold in India are made in India," Vohra said.

In India, Gionee has partnerships with Foxconn and Dixon to assemble its smartphones. The company is also working to set up its own manufacturing unit in Faridabad.

Gionee sells it phones through 42,000 retail counters and has 555 exclusive service centres across country.

"We will continue to focus on offline sales. Online accounts for very small portion. We are working with an online platform to sell our devices with them but there will be no price difference between online and offline," Vohra added.