Micromax to invest Rs 300Cr for 3 manufacturing plants in India

Indian smartphone manufacturer Micromax will invest Rs 300 crore in India over the next few months to set up three new manufacturing units, reportsIBNLive. The new plants will be set up in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana, and will be operational by next year.

As of now, Micromax claims that it has allotted 20 acres of land in Telangana and 25 acres in Rajasthan for the manufacturing plants. The construction on both these plants will begin soon, while the location for the Andhra Pradesh will be decided soon. Overall, the company aims to have a capacity of 4 million units once these plants are fully functional. It will invest Rs 100 crore in each plant.

Micromax currently has an assembly unit in Rudrapur which produces around 1 million units, accounting for one third of the company’s requirements, with the rest of the units imported from China. The company had started manufacturing at this plant in April last year, where it also manufactures all the tablets sold in the country. Interestingly, Micromax mentions that by 2017, it will start to manufacture batteries and other components in India.

Manufacturing in India: The Indian government has been encouraging domestic companies to start manufacturing electronics goods within the country instead of importing them and had approved a National Policy on Electronics. Since then, various smartphone manufacturers have said they will start manufacturing in India or have already started doing so.

– Last month, Optiemus Infracom, the founder of the domestic mobile brand Zen Mobile, signed a joint venture with Wistron Corporation to set up a mobile manufacturing unit in Noida.

– Various manufacturers have tied up with Foxconn to manufacture phones in India. Earlier this month, Oppo started contract manufacturing in India in partnership with Foxconn while in September, Gionee tied up with Foxconn and Dixon to manufacture its phones in India. In June, the company started making Xiaomi phones in the country.

– The month before, Foxconn was in talks with Adani Enterprises to form a joint venture (JV), likely to make iPhones in India. The company had first reported in June that it could possibly set up base in India to manufacture iPhones, iPads and iPods for Indian and international sales.

– In August, Lenovo started the local production of smartphones with Flextronics under a contract manufacturing deal at its Sriperumbudur plant.

– Videocon Mobile Phones, Videocon Group’s mobile company, started manufacturing mobile phones in the country.

– In June, homegrown mobile phone maker Celkon opened its first manufacturing unit in the country in Telangana.

– In March, Samsung and Sony had announced plans for setting up manufacturing bases in India as a part of the Make in India initiative.

– Earlier this year, Spice Group said it would invest Rs 500 crores to set up a manufacturing unit in Uttar Pradesh.

Huawei announces Enjoy 5S smartphone with 4G LTE and Fingerprint sensor

Reported by Zara Ali  Mobiles & Tablets  Last Updated: December 5, 2015 at 11:45 am0

Huawei has announced a successor to its Enjoy 5 smartphone in China, named as the Enjoy 5S. The device features a 7.6mm slim metal clad unibody design adorned with a Fingerprint sensor. It has been launched at a price of 1199 Yuan (Approx. US$ 187 / Rs. 12,500). Huawei has not revealed any information regarding the device’s global availability yet.

The device features a 5-inch HD IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, and is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6753T 64-bit chipset clubbed with 2GB of RAM. It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with Emotion UI 3.1 Lite on top, and has 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via microSD card. There is a 13-megapixel primary camera with LED flash, along with a 5-megapixel selfie camera. In the connectivity department, it supports Hybrid dual-SIM, 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and is backed by a 2,200mAh battery. It measures 143.5 x 71 x 7.6mm, weighs 135 grams, and will be available in Silver and Golden color options.

Huawei Enjoy 5S specifications

• 5-inch HD IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels
• 1.5 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6753T SoC clubbed with 2GB of RAM
• 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 128GB via microSD card
• Android 5.1 Lollipop with Emotion UI 3.1 Lite on top
• 13MP primary camera with LED Flash, and 5MP front-facing camera
• Hybrid dual-SIM, 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
• 2,200mAh battery

Micromax sells a million Canvas Spark series 3G phones in six months on Snapdeal

Home-grown handset maker Micromax Informatics has sold more than a million Canvas Spark series 3G phones in less than six months of its launch exclusively on Snapdeal.

The Canvas Spark series 3G phones– Canvas Spark and Canvas Spark 2–received more than 90,000 positive consumer ratings, the company said in a release. Canvas Spark 2 is now available bundled with a data package from Airtel that allows consumers to use Whatsapp free of charge for a period of five months.

Micromax Informatics has now decided to make the phones available on open sale exclusively on Snapdeal without any pre-registrations.

Vineet Taneja, CEO, Micromax, said, “The consumer response for the Canvas Spark series has been phenomenal and overwhelming at the same time with the demand for the range is increasing with every passing minute. We expect the sales of this device to touch a new high in the coming weeks and hope to further strengthen our leadership in mass smartphone category in India.”

Kunal Bahl, Co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal, said, “We are delighted with the response that this phone has received. The Canvas Spark series has been amongst the best performing smartphones on Snapdeal with a phenomenal response from our customers across more than 5,000 towns and cities of India. There is a huge untapped market for smartphones in India and we will continue to offer our customers access to the best smartphones at great value.”

Android 6.0 Marshmallow Roll-out Roadmap for Lenovo Smartphones Detailed

Android 6.0 Marshmallow was first unveiled in May 2015 at Google I/O under the codename “Android ‘M'” and it was officially released last month. And while there hundreds of millions of users who still don’t have even Android Lollipop, there are phone makers who are already making public their plans to bring Android 6.0 to their users.

Lenovo has announced through a support document called Android Upgrade Matrix when it would be rolling out the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update to its popular smartphones – K3 Note, Vibe S1, Vibe P1, A7000, and A7000 Plus. Here’s the rollout of Android 6.0 Marshmallow looks like for a couple of Lenovo smartphones:

• Lenovo A7000 and A7000 Plus – by September next year
• Lenovo K3 Note – by September next year
• Lenovo Vibe S1 and Lenovo Vibe P1 – June next year

It needs to be pointed out that all these smartphones already run at least Android 5.0 Lollipop. Lenovo further adds that these roll-out dates don’t include devices that are customized by carriers. The Chinese company also said it takes the liberty to modify the release date, so this should be more of an estimate, than something 100% sure.

For the time being, it seems that no other Lenovo handsets would be receiving Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Sony, Motorola, Samsung Huawei have all revealed their rollout plans and it seems that for the time being Lenovo is going to be among the slowest ones.

Since Android 6.0 Marshmallow was recently released, it’s no wonder that it has only a 0.3 percent share  of all the Android devices visiting Google Play. Among the most important new features we find a new permissions architecture, Google Now On Tap, a new power management system, native support for fingerprint recognition and USB Type-C connectors, the ability to migrate data to a microSD card and use it as primary storage, and other various improvements.

Micromax Canvas 5 Launched at Rs 11,999; Features 3GB RAM and a 5.2-inch FHD Display

Micromax has pulled the wraps off its latest flagship, the Canvas 5 after a gap of two years. Unlike the previous flagships, the Canvas 5 comes shrouded in leather finish along with metal chassis which imparst a much needed elegant look to the device. The design lines look well balanced and it seems that Micromax has ensured there is no cutting the corners when it comes to design elements.

The Micromax Canvas 5 is fitted with a 5.2-Inch FHD display with 2.5D curved screen and thinned out bezels. The device draws its power from a octa-core 64-bit MediaTek processor clocked at 1.3GHz and paired with a 3GB of RAM, making it the first Micromax device to come with 3GB of RAM.

On the storage front the Canvas 5 offers 16GB of internal storage which is further expandable up to 64GB, thanks to the microSD card slot. The imaging department is taken care of by a 13-Megapixel primary camera with Samsung 3M2 sensor with phase detection and auto-focus. The phone runs on Android 5.1 and is backed up by a2,900mAh battery pack which according to the company offers 10 hours of talktime and 275 hours of standby.

Micromax Canvas 5 heralds with the usual array of connectivity features including dual SIM and 4G LTE support and will be available in Space Grey and Tan Brown color options. The flagship is priced at Rs 11,999 and is bundled with a double data offer exclusively for Airtel 4G customers for a period of 3 months.

Micromax Canvas 5 will go loggerheads with other devices in its price range which includes the likes of Xiaomi Mi 4i and Moto G3, not to mention the slew of other budget phones in the market. Micromax has been focussing a lot on the niche market, like the selfie phones and it has not come up with a premium, well performing handset for quite a while. That being said the Canvas 5 will fit the bill for people looking out to buy an all round smartphone at an affordable price without really compromising on the looks at least.