E-tel displaces top brands in move up to No 3 in overall mobile phone market

Friday, 20 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

E-tel has become the third highest-selling brand in Sri Lanka’s mobile phone market in the first quarter of 2014, while retaining its position as third biggest player in the smartphone segment, according to the latest report of market intelligence and advisory firm CyberMedia Research (CMR). This makes E-tel the only brand present in the top three of both the Feature phone and Smartphone segments in the local market, the brand’s importer Brantel said. The company quoted the 17th June 2014 CMR announcement which stated: ‘In the overall Sri Lanka mobile handsets market, Nokia emerged as the leader with a 26.2% share, followed by Micromax at second position with 18.3% and E-tel at third position with 11.4%, in terms of unit sales during 1Q CY 2014.’

Reporting on the smartphone segment, CMR said: ‘Smartphone unit sales (shipments) touched 0.12 million units in Sri Lanka during 1Q CY 2014. Samsung emerged as the leader in the smartphones segment with a 27.7% share in 1Q CY 2014, followed by Huawei with 18.9%. E-tel occupied third place with 13.9% share of shipments during the same period.’ The overall Sri Lanka mobile handsets market encompassing smartphones, feature phones and basic touch phones, recorded sales of over 0.76 million units in between January and March 2014, the CMR report said. Commenting on the latest market share figures, Brantel CEO BishriLatiff said: “Even though the smartphone segment is where E-tel has already established itself as one of the top three brands in Sri Lanka, it is very encouraging to see growth in the feature phone segment leading to E-tel becoming a top three brand in the overall market, displacing some top global names.” He said the company’s focus on the smartphone segment with high-speed, fully-loaded handsets that outperform much higher priced top tier brands would continue, with the arrival of newer and faster models at extremely competitive prices. Named after the Curiosity rover sent to Mars, the E-tel smartphone range sold in Sri Lanka comprises of the Curiosity i4, i6 and i8 series and the latest quad-core Curiosity N3 released in early March 2014. The phones are designed in Hong Kong and manufactured in three Top 10-ranked manufacturing facilities in China that produce branded smartphones for the European and US markets, guaranteeing the same high level of quality, consistency and performance. One of the key strengths of the E-tel brand has been its ability to offer the latest in technology without the price tag associated with building global brand equity. E-tel phones are available in nearly 2,000 dealer outlets in Sri Lanka and via a Brantel owned aftersales service network of seven service centres in Colombo, Anuradhapura, Kandy, Matara, Negombo, Kurunegala and Ratnapura. Brantel has been in operation in Sri Lanka since 2004 and launched the E-tel brand in 2008.