SPG Global Distribution Pvt Ltd is a prominent distribution company in telecom. SPG was incepted in 2003, by its Founder and Director, Shekhar Kukreja with their main office in Faridabad (Haryana) and branch office in New Delhi.
“Earlier we handled several brands of feature phones and smart phones, but now we are concentrating only on distributing feature phones and smart phones for Celkon. We are not distributing mobile accessories or any other IT products at present. Celkon is a Telangana-based provider and Celkon phones are distributed by SPG Global Distribution Pvt Ltd. We started providing Celkon in Feb 2015. For Celkon 80% units sold are smart phones and 20% are feature phones. We are quite satisfied with our Channel Partners’ performance and with the hearty support from our Celkon Retail Partners throughout Haryana,” clarifies Mr. Kukreja.
For Celkon, as a part of first phase of marketing, they started off in Haryana state and plan to gradually expand to other states in India. We have 32 Channel Partners, 500 Celkon key retail partners, 200 ISDs outlets and young, intelligent, dynamic, highly experienced and energetic strong sales team of 60 personnel with a strong backend and effective logistics. Mr. Kukreja wants the number retail partners to increase to 1000 by July 2015. Their strategy is to start in A-Class cities in Haryana first and then move to B-Class cities.
Mr. Kukreja asserts, “Our USPs are we do transparent business and offer the best and promised quality to the end customers. We maintain family-like relationship with our channel partners and our business model is long-term and relationship-based. On the top of it, we give 24X7X365 service support. Our vendor is also very supportive towards us. This financial year we want to achieve 40%-50% growth rate.”
As for the latest trends and promotion support to the channel, “Due to increasing competition, prices and then margins are coming down, but if the partners work hard and offer good customer-satisfaction, they can make good money. We have dedicated partners and they are our strength. For branding and promotion, we are giving ads in print media and TVs, POS branding, hoardings, etc. At key retail outlets, we are also keeping in-shop demonstrators and promoters who explain the customers about our brands and models. Today, people are shifting rapidly from feature phones to smart phones in cities, and smaller towns are not far behind in following this trend. From now on we are expecting a decline in the feature phone sales and rapid rise in smart phone sales,” adds Mr. Kukreja.
Regarding challenges, “There are apprehensions among the providers about the 4G due to be launched in Dec 2015. Everybody made their spaces in 2G and 3G domains. Now, they are concerned about what new strategies they may have to device to promote themselves in the 4G space. And then there is a controversy that online retailing is adversely affecting the traditional channel. For us that is no issue since our vendor places only some models exclusively online. They do not place these models online which they give to the traditional channel. That is a good part with our vendor.”
Celkon Mobiles is present in more than 400 districts through 80,000 retail outlets in India. The company achieved revenues close to INR 1000 Cr in just a span of 5 years. Celkon is also present in 13 global markets including Africa, Europe and APAC regions. Celkon has launched several innovative products in India such as Campus A35K, WIN 400 – First Windows model from Celkon, Millennia OCTA 510 – First Octa-core model from Celkon; to name a few and the recently launched Millennia ME, A419 and Q450. Celkon is currently in the strategic expansion phase and will be introducing many more innovative and exciting products.
For future plans, Mr. Kukreja concludes, “We want to focus completely on Celkon and particularly on Celkon smart phones. We want to expand our business in terms of sales volumes and revenues. Gradually and systematically, we want to expand and establish our Celkon sales in other states of India.”