Tecno follows Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung to get a pound of India's red hot smartphone market

• Tecno, a smartphone manufacturer based out of Hong Kong, is launching its first flagship phone in India — the Phantom 9.
  
• Despite being a ‘flagship’ phone, Phantom 9 has launched at ₹14,999 undercutting big wigs in the segment like OnePlus, Samsung and Xiaomi.
  
• Transsion Holdings, Tecno’s parent company, is looking to make India one of its top three market by next year.
  

The Hong Kong based smartphone manufacturer, Tecno, is looking to launch its first flagship phone in India — the Phantom 9.

India being a price sensitive market, the company’s success in the segment will depend largely on the price point these choose for the launch. In Nigeria, the phone launched for a mere 77,000 Naira which converts to approximately ₹14,712.

Flipkart’s listing in India shows the price of the flagship device listed as ₹14,999. If that holds true, it will be the cheapest phone in the ‘flagship’ segment undercutting OnePlus, Samsung and Xiaomi’s flagship offerings in the same category.

Transsion Holdings, Tecno’s parent company that also operates iTel and Infinix, is aiming to make India one of its top three markets by 2020.

What’s the catch?

On paper, there doesn’t seem to be one.

Tecno is not short changing users on features with an under the display fingerprint scanner, a triple rear camera setup, an 6.4-inch AMOLED display and 6GB RAM coupled with 128GB of storage — at par with what Xiaomi and OnePlus put up for grabs on their premium devices.

The entire setup is powered by a Meditek Helio P35 Processor and a 3500 mAh battery.

The phone’s primary camera is a 16 megapixel sensor with an 8 megapixel wide-angle sensor and a 2 megapixel sensor for depth.

From Africa to India

The company has already made its mark in Africa and has been working on increasing its footprint in other emerging countries around the world like India, Bangladesh and Nepal. It has also been reportedly testing sales in Pakistan as well.

Arijeet Talapatra, Transsion India’s CEO, told PTI that the company is looking to position as an export hub for its devices. It has two functioning manufacturing units in India that have annual capacity to churn out 20 million feature phones and 10 million smartphones.

The next step, according to Talapatra, is to set up a research and development unit for the company locally so that it can tailor its devices for the Indian market.

Tecno currently has a three year partnership with Flipkart to exclusively launch its devices on the e-commerce platform and its also looking to capitalise on Indian football fans after having recently renewed its global partnership with Manchester City Football Club.