Idea Says It Sold 800,000 Branded Smartphones Since Mid-2012

Third-largest mobile operator Idea Cellular on Tuesday said that it has sold 800,000 branded smartphones over the past 30 months and added that over three-fourths of those users are still with the brand.

"We have sold 8 lakh smartphone handsets through our network in the last two-and-a-half years, and around 75-80 percent of them are continuing with Idea itself," chief marketing officer Sashi Shankar told reporters in Mumbai.

Launching two new 3G smartphones, the Idea Fab and Idea Ultra+, targeted at the semi-urban and rural markets, he said this takes the company's branded smartphone offerings to 19.

Shankar said the company is targeting to sell up to 30,000 units of the handsets in the next two months.

Andhra, Kerala, Gujarat and Maharashtra are the most active markets for the company when it comes to bundled handset sales, accounting for around 75 percent of sales, Shankar said.

The Idea Fab and Ultra+ launched on Tuesday have been priced at Rs. 4,999 and Rs. 8,300 respectively.

The Idea Ultra+ is a dual-SIM smartphone with a leather back finish. It has an unspecified 1.3GHz quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM and it runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). The ODM for Idea's Ultra+ is Alcatel, and Idea is working with the company to upgrade the Ultra+ to KitKat soon. The phone has a 5-inch screen with a resolution of 480x854 pixel. There is also an 8-megapixel camera with flash onboard. A 2000mAh battery will provide the juice for the Ultra+. Apart from the internal storage space of 4GB, of which approximately 2GB is available for users, the Ultra+ also accepts microSD cards (up to 32GB).

The comparatively cheaper Idea Fab dual-SIM smartphone has a smaller 4-inch screen with a resolution of 480x800 pixels. The Android 4.2 Jelly Bean-based Fab will be manufactured by Commtel. It has a 3.2-megapixel rear camera with flash and no front-facing camera. A 1.2GHz dual-core processor sits under the hood, coupled with 512MB of RAM. Featuring 4GB of built-in storage, Idea Fab also accepts microSD cards up to 32GB.

Written with inputs from PTI