While a lot has been said about Micromax’s climb to success, not a lot has been said about the journey. Within two years of being formed, Micromax became one of the largest distributors of mobile handsets in the Country. The Company started off with four founders: Rajesh Agarwal, Vikas Jain, Rahul Sharma and Sumeet Kumar. Ever since its inception, Micromax’s philosophy has been simple, to be the best at what they do and never settle for repetition.
Fresh out of college and full of enthusiasm, the founders knew the year 1999 was time to capitalize on the dot.com boom happening in the Country at the time. All they could think of was software and how the world could change with the technology boom! Making modest beginnings as an M2M partner for Nokia (under a partnership with the Micromax Software,) the founders were introduced to the concept of fixed wireless terminals from a Finnish executive of the mobile company. This soon went on to power payphones in India which used SIM cards in areas with no landline connectivity.
They started supplying this technology everywhere and soon, M2M became the second largest company in the world! However, Nokia sold the business shortly and this left Sharma and Co., in a fix. Very soon they realised the big game changer was in creating handsets and not just in selling hardware or partnering with payphones. The scene changed quickly with the entry of Micromax smartphones in March 2008. The new kids shook up the market! In India, about 100 to 120 million handsets are sold annually, 80 million handsets are imported and the size of the handset business is valued at Rs 27,000 crores. In two years, Micromax increased its market share from 0.59 % in 2008 to about 5 % in 2010.
So how did Micromax break through a world which was dominated by Sony and Nokia? By being unique in every aspect, of course! The company’s policy was to identify with all factions of society. Micromax broke from the norms by introducing products that fit well with the rural consumer need. The handset manufacturer was the first to launch many innovative products such as handsets with 30 days battery backup, dual SIM/dual standby, handsets that could switch between networks (GSM to CDMA and vice versa,) QWERTY keypads and universal remote controls.
Through the years, Micromax established itself as the one stop shop for smartphones made available to people across different strata of the society. Today, a majority of Micromax phones boast this feature, even as competitors struggle to match its pace.
