The Chinese brand Vivo is going all out to woo Indian customers in a highly competitive and saturated mobile handset market. As part of its India strategy in order to give a first hand feel of its products to the Indian customers it has opened its first offline experience centre in India in Bengaluru. Spread across 3600 square feet space with two floors, the centre is located in the central business district of the IT city. The company plans to have similar centres in other cities of India as well in the future. Vivo has similar centres in different places in China. The aim of the centre will provide prospective customers an access and a first hand feel of its entire range of Y and V series smartphones.
“The Indian market has been stagnant over the last few months with multiple brands crowding the market. However, off-late, the market is opening up and we are getting good traction. We are currently trying to strengthen our distribution network in rural areas of the country so that we can penetrate deeper into the Indian market as we are seeing good traction coming even from the rural and the B&C class cities of India. In order to gain in more visibility, we are also sponsoring events like IPL and Pro Kabbadi. This experience centre will help us gain more visibility in India.” Kenny Zeng, Chief Marketing Officer, Vivo India told THE WEEK.
Interestingly Vivo which is present in eleven countries entered the Indian market in late 2014 with a strong focus on the camera and music. Vivo has over 80,000 retail stores across India and sells through multiple channels such as Vivo exclusive stores, e-commerce platforms like Flipkart and Amazon, and different retails stores. It has a manufacturing plant in Greater Noida near Delhi. “Our Noida plant has the capacity to churn out 1 million devices a month,” added Zeng.
