Set up primarily to ‘Make in India’, Ambrane India aims to become a top notch global player in the power bank sector. In an interaction with Baishakhi Dutta of Electronics Bazaar, Ashok Rajpal, managing director, Ambrane India Pvt Ltd, shares how the company also plans to make a mark in the wearables domain.
EB: What’s the business strategy that has led to Ambrane’s success?
With an investment of only ₹ 100,000 in the year 2012, followed by several positive developments, we have a turnover of over ₹ 1 billion today. Our business strategy has been to use the latest technology to develop innovative solutions designed exclusively for the Indian markets. Also, we took the risk of being an online brand when the e-commerce space was very new and power banks were not very popular in India. This has resulted in several benefits – one of which is the first mover advantage, which has earned us the strongest recall, since we were out there before the market got cluttered.
EB: What were the challenges you had to overcome as a hardware product based business in India?
Like every other brand, we too faced a set of challenges on the operations as well as the manufacturing fronts. For instance, we only had unskilled manpower in the unit, and raw materials for production were either unavailable or of sub-standard quality. Even technology becomes a challenge in India, in terms of getting the latest machines and their spare parts. However, over a period of time, we have overcome these problems.
EB: Tell us about your manufacturing unit and production capacity.
We are one of the first brands to set up a dedicated power bank manufacturing plant in India with a focus on quality. Currently, we have two manufacturing units in Haryana – in Kundli and in Sonipat. With the state-of-art machinery that we have imported from Japan and Korea, we have the capacity to produce 1 million power banks per month, or 14,000 power banks daily. We already have our R&D setup in India, which includes a technical and quality department within the manufacturing unit. Going forward, we have plans to invest more in R&D.
EB: Are there any plans to set up production units in other parts of India?
Yes, we are planning to set up new production units in south India by next year.
EB: How do you reach out to your customers?
We occupy around 25-30 per cent of the India market at present. We have done extensive business with Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, and have consistently been on the top when it comes to sales. This is not only limited to the festive seasons. After seeing steady growth in the online channel, Ambrane aims to replicate this success with an offline model too.
EB: What is your strategy for offline sales?
We have been very aggressive in setting up the sales network. To establish our offline presence, we aim to focus on new verticals and new geographies in 2018. We will continue to equip our channel partners with useful tools and first-hand information about technologies and market changes, to give them an edge over the competition. This year, we also plan to cater to a broader customer base and launch new products that will add value to the users. We have got a fantastic response for our products in India, and we are all set to bring out a range of products for different customer segments like audio, gaming, lifestyle, corporates, and even media.
EB: Tell us about your plans to make smart watches and fitness bands. Are there any tentative price ranges and an estimated timeframe for hitting the market?
There’s nothing on the horizon that will elevate the smart watch from a nice-to-have gadget to one that you must have. The current focus remains on fitness bands, having witnessed a phenomenal response to our last model – Flexi Fit. We have some product launches in the pipeline, which come with several advanced technologies. We are expecting a good market share in this category, with the addition of these upcoming products.
EB: What are your global marketing strategies and goals?
We are planning to engage with global partners and will start our international operations from the Middle East in this financial year. Our goal is to position Ambrane at a good place, globally.
