NEW DELHI: Microsoft introduces a feature-rich, dual-SIM Lumia 540. This makes it the sixth Lumia series phone to be made available in the market in as many months, said the company’s Director-South, T.S. Sridhar.
At a briefing, he said that with the Lumia range of phones, the company was transforming at retail, a whopping 8,872 stores, 119 care centres across India and 441 Microsoft Priority Re-sellers (all formerly Nokia exclusive outlets) offered the ‘Touch and Feel’ experience to consumers. In South India, there were 99 of these Priority Re-sellers.
“We have always seen Hyderabad as a retail experience provider and that is why 13 of these priority stores are located in Hyderabad and 16 more across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Smartphones in the Rs. 4,000 to Rs, 12,000 brackets are the fastest-growing,” he said. The Lumia 540 was first launched in New Delhi, followed by Chennai.
In reply to a question, he said that despite the obviously-growing ecommerce, all channels of sales and distribution would exist. “They all have their space. Given India’s unique social systems, the Mom and Pop stores where a parent accompanies a young person, the experience of holding a device in hand does help,” he explained.
The Lumia 540 with Windows 8.1, is priced at Rs. 10,199 and comes with freebies totalling to about Rs. 3,000 including Airtel data, ‘Gaana’, ‘Ola’ and PayTm cashback offers. Among the unique selling propositions were that it was future-proof and upgradable to Windows 10 to be launched later in the year and superior battery life.
