Last month, former Apple CEO John Sculley launched his smartphone brand called Obi Mobiles in India. The company plans on initially launching devices in the Rs 5,000 and Rs 8,000 range, and according to the Economic Times, these devices will include Windows Phones and 4G capable smartphones. Also Read - Watch the first trailer of the new 'Steve Jobs' biopic starring Michael Fassbender
According to the publication, Obi Mobiles will launch its first Windows Phone sometime in the next quarter, while the first 4G-capable smartphone will only arrive in the last quarter of the current fiscal year. In a chat with ET, Ajay Sharma who heads the brand, said that the company aims at achieving Rs 1,000 crore revenues by the end of the fiscal year and targets sales of 1.6 million to 1.7 million devices. Also Read - Ajay Sharma, CEO of John Sculley's Obi Mobiles quits
People are migrating from feature phones to smartphones and adoption of small phones is growing. This is a right time to be in strategic market like India, Sharma told ET. By the time we scale up and close the year, we could be even looking at 4 percent market share.
Obi Mobiles is being funded by Singapore-based Inflexionpoint, which has invested $20 million in the business. Distribution in the country will be handled by Iris Computers, which too is owned by Inflexionpoint.
