Spice Mobile to manufacture low-cost tablets, smartphones -Governance Now

Spice Mobile to manufacture low-cost tablets, smartphones

Wishes to be known as the "Apple of Asia"

PTI | June 16, 2011

Spice Mobile, a B K Modi-promoted Spice Group company, may soon enter in to a tie-up with a leading chip maker to manufacture low-cost tablets and smartphones.

Dilip Modi, Managing Director of Spice Mobility, on Wednesday said the company is also in discussions with a couple of companies in Nigeria and South Africa for acquisition. Spice Global is actively considering listing in one of the exchanges of London, USA and Hong Kong, he said.

"We are on the verge of entering into a strategic partnership with one of the leading chip making companies to develop smart devices on low-cost platform. What we are trying to do is that we want people to afford smartphones with all the applications," Modi told reporters here.

He said the company wants to be known as the "Apple of Asia" and will come out with many interesting products such as Blueberries and touch screen devices with applications like messaging and social networking at a much lower cost.

Spice Mobility is currently looking at acquiring three firm each in Nigeria, South Africa and West Asia, he said.

"We are currently evaluating acquisitions in Nigeria and South Africa. I can't disclose the names at this time. In the Middle East (West Asia) we are in discussions in one of the leading mobile retail players," he added.

While declining to reveal the names of those firms, Modi said the aim of the company is to sell 35 to 40 million handsets across the regions it is present in.

Spice Global, the parent company of the Group, is mulling overseas listing to raise around USD 1 billion.

The company advisors are working on the exact fund size.

A major part of the funds raised through listing will be used for acquisitions, Modi said.

Spice i2i, another Group company, recently acquired Indonesian mobile player Affinity Group for USD 175 million.

Modi said Affinity, which owns the local brand 'Nexian', is in the second place in Indonesia with 21 per cent market share in the mobile handset business next to Nokia.

Apart from contract manufacturing partnerships in Taiwan and China for mobile devices, Spice has an assembling facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.

Comments

Other News

Maharashtra adopts hybrid model for Census 2026 data collection

The government has initiated preparations for Census 2026 in Maharashtra, introducing a hybrid approach that combines optional self-enumeration with comprehensive door-to-door data collection to ensure complete coverage across the state. According to senior officials, the Self-

What the nine Indian Nobel winners have in common

A Touch Of Genius: The Wisdom of India’s Nobel Laureates Edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee Aleph Books, Rs 1499, 848 pages

Income Tax dept holds Ghatkopar Outreach on new IT Act

The Income Tax Department organised an outreach programme in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, to raise awareness about the key features of the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026. The initiative is part of a nationwide effort to promote taxpayer awareness, simplify compliance, and strengthen a transparent, eff

Making AI work where governance is closest to people

India’s next governance leap may not solely come from digitisation. It will come from making public systems more intelligent, more adaptive, and more responsive to the dynamics at the grassroots. That opportunity is especially significant at the panchayat level, where governance is not an abstract po

Borrowing troubles: How small loans are quietly trapping youth

A silent crisis is playing out in the pocket of young India, not in stock markets or government treasuries, but in smartphones of college students and first-jobbers who clicked on the Apply Now button without reading the small print. A decade ago, to take a loan, you had to do some paperwor