Tecno Mobile India’s journey started, in 2017, in three markets – Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat – in a cluttered market. The initial months in the pilot markets, understanding the consumer, the channel and pain-points in the different segments, these learnings were then applied as the brand scaled up to become a pan-India brand.
Arijeet Talapatra, CEO, Tecno Mobile India says, “We are a global company but we understand the local aspiration, the local needs of the consumer. That is what helped us move ahead as Glocal is what Tecno stands for. Our product is high on technology and we fulfill the aspiration with value for money.”
Looking at Tecno’s offering in India, they include the premium Phantom, the mid-segment Camon and Pova and the covering the lower-end range with Spark and Pop. Talapatra says, “We have segmented the consumer in India into various categories. In terms of geographical presence, we are present deep down in Tier IV, Tier V and Tier VI. While we initially focused on off-line but post Covid-19, we also shifted our focus to online. We are doing well in the all the categories we are present in and the consumers are understanding that we want to give them.”
Talapatra also states that the consumers in the smaller towns are more aware with high aspirations with almost 40% of consumption happening in Tier III towns and below. If you take the pyramid category, Tier I and Tier II towns see a lot of the top of the pyramid selling. Looking at the middle and bottom of the pyramids, the aspirations and knowledge in this segment is high. Called the “Alpha techies”, this segment wants a premium phone that fills their aspirations and is budget-friendly.”
He states, “The USP of Tecno is that we understand the consumer better. Our aim is to be innovative, accessible and deliver a value proposition to the consumers at different price-points throughout the country.”
Tecno’s recent offering, Pova 6 Pro has been positioned as an aesthetic gaming phone targeted to GenZs, offering 6000 mAh Battery, 70W Fast Charge and the Arc interface. The other recent launch is the The Tecno Camon 30 premier 50 – a camera-centric phone – priced under Rs 25,000. A photographic photo centric phone, it is positioned as fashion forward and social media ready phone which boasts of a high-resolution 50MP camera sensors on both the front and back,
Another key trend that Tecno is looking to leverage is the move to 5G. in sheer numbers, India is the second highest number of 5G users after China. Currently, more than 50% of Tecno phone launches are 5G across category and looking ahead in the next three to four months, this figure is set to touch 90%.
Coming to marketing, in the initial stages the focus was on the ground at the point of purchase and has now evolved to a complete 360 degrees. Says Talapatra, “A big percentage of budget is now used in digital and social, because almost 40% to 45% of the market is online and now e-commerce.” He adds, “Our marketing budgets have going up over a period. Consumers are present everywhere across platforms and when you need to communicate to the consumer, you have to be present across platforms, and none of these platforms are very pocket friendly, so you have to spend a lot.”
Tecno had signed on actor Ayushmann Khurrana as its brand ambassador for a period of two years. The brand recently on-boarded actor Deepika Padukone as its brand ambassador four months back.
Looking ahead, the challenger brand’s plans to be aggressive in terms of its offerings with new launches across segments. He says, “we will continue to be very aggressive in terms of our offerings to the consumer. We have huge plans for Camon 30, and launch in the ultra-premium segment launch with the Phantom series. Our Spark series will keep surprising the consumers. With the Pova series, Camon series and Phantom series, we will showcase what we can deliver on technology. We really are excited for this year, and the festival season as well.”
