Micromax chairman Sanjay Kapoor resigns?

Not all’s well at Micromax. Insiders at company suggest that the chairman of Micromax Sanjay Kapoor has put in his papers. Kapoor, who had joined the company just more than a year ago, resigned because of his growing differences with promoters.

While the Indian born handset maker didn't elaborate on the reasons of Kapoor’s resignation, the company in an email to The Economic Times has said, "Appropriate announcements will be made in due course. We would like to thank him for his contribution and wish him luck for all his future endeavours."

Discussions are underway regarding the financial terms of his exit, one of the sources revealed. When he joined in June 2014, Kapoor had been entrusted for making Micromax a global brand, helping it raise money and boost its software capabilities. His primary tasks included focussing on new products and grow on areas such as data, access, storage, analytics, applications and content, apart from devices.

"Differences regarding these and more have been rising over a period of time. But now they have reached a point that they can't be reconciled," sources disclosed to the financial daily.

Kapoor, a former Bharti Airtel chief executive for India and South Asia, is also a director at PVR and Bennett, Coleman & Company Ltd.


At the time Kapoor joined, Micromax also hired Samsung India mobile head Vineet Taneja and another Bharti Airtel veteran Badal Bagri to power growth and build a bigger brand before an initial public offering (IPO). Taneja and Bagri remain firmly entrenched in the company, the people said.

The IPO plan included bringing in strategic investors to fuel Micromax's next phase of growth. That involved likely funding from a consortium led by Ant Financial Services Group, China's leading online financial services company that owns Alipay. This is also said to be going slow, because of the outgoing chairman and the promoters not being on the same page and also due to differing valuation expectations. The four founder promoters - Rahul Sharma, Rajesh Agarwal, Sumeet Kumar and Vikas Jain - own a little less than 80% of the company. Micromax had announced plans two years ago to enter Russia by the end of 2013 and other European countries subsequently. It has a negligible presence in Russia and hasn't gone further afield, although it has ventured into parts of South Asia.


Its efforts to invest in app makers with the aim of becoming a services company rather than just a mobile phone vendor and its launch of youth brand Yureka have been helmed by cofounder Sharma. Micromax is also a licensee for the emerging Cyanogen mobile operating system.


Being on top after a tough fight, Micromax has dropped to second position in terms of market share, which is 17%, as per an IDC data.