Orange brings Karbonn to Sri Lanka

Monday, 30 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Karbonn phones will enter the market at the bottom of the pyramid

Orange Electric, a premier manufacturer of electrical and lighting products, has now partnered with Karbonn, one of India’s leading mobile phone brands, to market their products in Sri Lanka. A complete range of Karbonn phones will be sold under the Orange brand. The telco arm of Orel Corporation, holder of the popular Orange brand has plans to capture 20% of the mobile market, with a range of top international mobile phone brands, within the next few years.

Karbonn, the second mobile phone range to be launched in Sri Lanka under the Orange brand, is a joint venture between Jaina and UTL, two Indian conglomerates who has made Karbonn a great success story in India, with the brand now being amongst the top three most sought-after smartphone category stocked by mobile vendors in the country. A recent study has also recognised it as the second fastest growing mobile phone brand in India. On the back of that success Jaina and UTL recently launched a new extension to the Karbonn brand under the new name ‘Karbonn Smart.’ An entirely new range of technologically advanced products such as smartphones with highly advanced features as well as tablets will be marketed under the new label. Orange will be initially launching the four feature-mobile phones introduced under the Karbonn brand, which will cater to the bottom end of market. “Our objective initially is to penetrate the low end of Sri Lanka’s mobile phone market. While there is a vast interest in Smartphones across all segments of the market, the less priced phones have a greater demand amongst low income groups in the country, since they mostly use the basics of a mobile phone which is to take a call or send an SMS. Therefore, our strategy is to use the four models we are launching, to initially establish the brand’s identity, amongst the masses,” says Kushan Kodituwakku, Managing Director of Orel Corporation. The Telco arm of Orel has a long term plan for the range of Smartphones they intend launching, such as developing applications, which would be able to control electrical devices. The Company is of the opinion that the partnership Orange has forged with Karbonn is another step closer in the right direction, in terms of getting in to advanced telecommunication business. “Since we are covering the full range of electrical and lighting appliances our next step is to facilitate a platform where these appliances could be remotely controlled. Therefore the mobile phone is the obvious choice. We see this as organically growing the business and this is where we see the future of our company in the telecommunication field,” said Kodituwakku. Orel Corporation, who currently provides total electrical solutions for consumers in Sri Lanka and Overseas under their Orange brand, is now ready to embark on the telecommunication industry with the intention of becoming a total solutions provider for in the trade, for a cross section of Sri Lankan society. Their integrated services will include all telecommunication requirements such as WiFi, storage and etc and the overall objective is to combine electrics and electronics in a productive effort to make life easy. Karbonn mobile phones are now available through an island wide network of Orange vendors and outlets, as well as in more than 800 mobile shops with a one year after sales warranty for the phone and six month warranty on the battery.