Kolkata: Chinese communications firm Transsion Holding has picked up an 80 per cent stake in Spice Mobile as it aims to garner a larger market share in the fiercely competitive Indian mobile handset market. "The brand Spice mobile was transferred to a special purpose vehicle (SPV). In the joint venture company, Transsion holds 80 per cent stake while the Modis of the Spice Group hold the rest 20 per cent," a senior official who did not want to be quoted told news agency Press Trust of India.
However, Transsion has no plan to buy out the remaining stake of the SPV.
With this deal, Transsion is handling manufacturing, sourcing and marketing Spice brand phones in India Transsion has adopted a multi-brand strategy in India positioning each brand for each segment of the huge Indian handset market.
"We want to reposition Spice in the mid category segment of both feature and smartphones to compete with established brands catering to these segments (Rs 800-Rs 9,000) including Samsung, Nokia and Micromax," the official said.
Spice was among the top three highest selling handset brands even a few years back and had a strong brand recall. "We are offering one year replacement warranty against standard 100 days of other brands," he said.
Transsion began its Indian journey with Itel, a mass market feature phone. It also has Techno - its offline smartphone brand - and online brand Infinix.
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