Flipkart‘s co-founder Sachin Bansal, who made a comeback to the day-to-day operations at the e-commerce company with the launch of the ‘Billion’ brand earlier this year, is now introducing a smartphone under the private label.
Priced in the Rs 11,000-13,000 range, Billion Capture+ will be manufactured by home-grown device maker Smartrone and will look to cater to the mid-segment in a highly competitive smartphone market. Flipkart will sell the smartphones from November 15.
Bansal said Flipkart will look to add categories like FMCG and large appliances to Billion, helping the company take up its share of private labels from 1 per cent currently to double digits going forward.
Billion is a private label from the Flipkart stable envisioned by Bansal, erstwhile CEO of the e-commerce firm. Bansal had said in an interview while launching Billion in July that the brand will be made for India and will be made in India. Billion launched products in kitchen appliances like mixers and grinders, cookware, irons and lifestyle products such as backpacks. The genesis of the brand was that Flipkart’s research had shown a high level of dissatisfaction that existed among consumers despite a plethora of products being al ready present in the market.
“This is a big milestone for us and it will take us to the next phase from the brand’s point of view because launching a hitech product like smartphone is not easy. With Billion Capture+, we believe we have provided a great combination of value, specifications and a quality product,” Bansal said. Flipkart used data-driven research and insights into what specifications Indian customers wanted while putting together the smartphone. Bansal’s move to enter the smartphone space would pit it against established rivals like Xiaomi, MotoG and Samsung, among others. Both Amazonand Flipkart are pushing hard to expand India’s online retail consumption base and bring in millions of people into the e-tailing universe.
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