Optiemus eyes 10-12% market share with BlackBerry smartphone in India

| | New Delhi

Optiemus Infracom, which makes BlackBerry phones for the Indian market, expects the brand to capture 10-12 per cent market share of the Rs 25,000-45,000 smartphone segment by the end of this year.

Optiemus is lining up new devices across various price points for Blackberry as the brand looks to regain lost ground against rivals like Samsung, Xiaomi and others. Currently, the market share of Blackberry is negligible. 

“We have already introduced three devices in the last two months and the pipeline for new products is robust. We expect to capture 10-12 per cent share of the Rs 25,000-45,000 segment,” Optiemus Infracom executive director Hardip Singh told PTI.

BSE-listed Optiemus Infracom has a manufacturing and distribution tie-up with BlackBerry for India and neighbouring markets. BlackBerry had a similar partnership with TCL for other markets.

“The relevance of a Blackberry is much, much more today than it was 10 years back because today you are doing more than just communicating, especially the youngsters, they use phones for social networking, banking, personal data, photographs,” he explained.

Singh emphasised that the need to keep all this data private and secure is much more now. He said the company had conceptualised, designed and manufactured its latest Explore and Explore X devices in India, keeping in mind the young audiences and the features they seek. “These devices have features of a flagship at an affordable price and come with the security features that is synonymous with BlackBerry,” he said.

Once a dominant player in the smartphone category, BlackBerry struggled to compete against global competitors like Samsung and Apple. It, then, agreed to license its brand to handset manufacturer, TCL and Optiemus, shifting its gaze to software, security and Internet of Things. BlackBerry has taken a number of steps, including adopting the Android platform for powering its phones in attempts to re-capture its position.

India is one of the largest smartphone markets globally. Samsung and Xiaomi dominate the Indian market, while players like vivo and Oppo also have strong market share.