Sudhir Hasija, a first-generation entrepreneur and the Chairman of Karbonn Mobiles, always longed to create a brand with an expansive reach. And, when he saw a few home-grown companies cashing in on opportunities in the mobile phone market, he knew that the time was right to take the plunge. Hasija takes The Dollar Business through the company’s origins and future expansion plans.
TDB: You have had an interesting career graph — from managing distributorship of several telecom companies to owning one of India’s largest mobile phone companies. What prompted you to start Karbonn Mobiles?
Sudhir Hasija (SH): Right from the beginning, I was driven by an ambition to start my own venture. I left my hometown Meerut (in Uttar Pradesh) after completing my Class 10 exams and moved to Hyderabad, where I spent three years in a machine tools company. Later, with a very small amount of savings, I managed to set up my own business of selling TV accessories like antennas and trolleys in Chennai. Back then, I was managing most of the business myself – and that included climbing rooftops of buildings to install antennas!
Eventually, the business expanded to other south Indian cities as well. Soon, I was managing the entire South Indian region as a distributor for Samsung before finally giving it up in 2009 to start my own venture, Karbonn. The name Karbonn was coined as the company was Karnataka-born and the additional ‘n’ was added for numerological reasons. And, it has worked out well for us!
TDB: China-based handset makers have upped the ante by grabbing a 51% market share in the January-March quarter of 2017, primarily at the cost of Indian players. Where did domestic handset makers go wrong?
This story is from the August 2017 edition of The Dollar Business.
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This story is from the August 2017 edition of The Dollar Business.
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