Wynncom, the latest Indian brand to sell phones in India, will be launching its first seven phones in India tomorrow. A part of the SAR Group – the makers of Luminous brand of batteries, invertors and power backup solutions – Wyncomm plans to become one of the top three Indian handset brands (think of Micromax, Spice and Karbonn) within the next 12 months. I had an opportunity to interact with the company’s co-founder and managing director, Arvind R Vohra, to understand how they intend to make it big in the already cluttered market. Some excerpts from my interaction.

On too many handset brands with similar products: Yes, there are many domestic brands out there but if you see closely, there are only a handful of them that can be categorised as serious players. Wynncom is a committed player and we have made significant investments in the project. We have already roped in over 300 micro-distributors across the country and our phones will be available everywhere from day one. We also have a chain of 300 service centres under World Ace, a group company. Many of the existing ‘brands’ don’t even have a single service centre.

We want to ensure that our customers get the best possible experience. As far as phones go, there is no really differentiation out there. Hardware is more or less the same across brands when it comes to phones in the Rs 1,500-Rs 5,000 price segment. The real differentiation is how you make them available across the country and back it by a wide chain of service centres.

On investments and targets: We have earmarked Rs 100 crore for 2010-11 financial year and Rs 400 crore for 2011-12 financial year. We already have over 400 employees, which again shows that we are very serious about this venture. Thanks to Luminous, we already have vast experience of sourcing and manufacturing products in China. We also understand the Indian market better.

As far as targets are concerned, we want to be one of the top three Indian cellphone brands in the next 12 months. We also want to go outside India, in 36 markets where Luminous is present, by 2012.

On after-sales service: We realise that after-sales service is very crucial. That’s why we have our own chain of service centres. The plan is that eventually these centres will also service phones from other brands.

On target audience: The buying decision is essentially driven by youth and that’s why we have roped in Saif Ali Khan as our brand ambassador. As far as markets are concerned, we are targeting the entire country. Even metros like Delhi have a huge migrant population, which could be our audience. We will bring good quality products that people will like to buy.