Lava Says Will Compete in Sub-Rs. 10,000 Smartphone Segment, to Offer Doorstep Service

IPO-bound domestic mobile devices firm Lava International is gearing up to intensify competition in sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone segment with focus on new designs and compliment them with service at doorsteps, a senior company official said.

Lava International president and business head Sunil Raina told PTI that the company is coming up with Blaze series smartphones which will be priced Rs. 10,000 apiece and its buyers will get all the repair service on their doorsteps.

"We came up with the concept of customer relationship manager for Agni series phones — Agni Mitra — where customers were allotted a dedicated person to handle any issue that they may face in their smartphones. We are now going to extend the same concept for our upcoming Blaze series. We are planning to start it with 2,000 personnel across India," Raina said.

He said that the company wants to do away with the concept of a service centre, where a customer buys a phone from a shop and then has to run and queue up for service at any repair centre.

"Blaze is expected to have a wider customer base because of design and price. Our fault rates are very low compared to industry level. Therefore, we have decided to extend the service to this series. In case of software and minor hardware issues, it will be done at home while in case of major issue the phone will be collected, repaired and delivered to the customer at home. There will be no extra cost for the service. We want to tell customers that we take full responsibility for the devices that we sell to them," Raina said.

Lava will deploy its in-house resources for the service as well as partner third parties for providing the service.

"The service will be available across India and we are working on to implement partnership before launching the new smartphones. In the case of Agni, there has been an instance where our Agni Mitra has travelled with a customer on a train to fix a problem and returned after the issue was fixed. That too without any extra cost for the service. We want the customer to be free of all worries when he buys a device from us," Raina said.

Lava International has filed its draft papers with capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in September 2021 to raise funds through Initial Public Offering (IPO).

The IPO comprises fresh issuance of equity shares worth Rs 500 crore and an Offer For Sale (OFS) of 4,37,27,603 equity shares, according to the draft red herring prospectus.

Proceeds from the issue will be used for marketing and brand building activities, funding acquisition and other strategic initiatives and investment in material subsidiaries and for funding its working capital requirements.