First smartphone expected next month

As rumoured earlier, former Apple CEO John Sculley-backed smartphone brand Obi Mobiles has been introduced in the Indian market. The company is being promoted by Inflexionpoint, an IT-firm, where Sculley is a founding partner and will be headed by former HTC India head and Micromax smartphone division chief Ajay Sharma.

Obi Mobiles plans to release smartphones priced between INR 5,000 and INR 8,000 in the country and the first phone is expected to be released in May 2014.

According to a report, Inflexionpoint is investing $20 million in the venture, which will be used to set-up supply chain, design centre, sales network and after-sales service centres in India.

“We hope to sell a million units and aim to turn the venture profitable within 5 months of launch,” Sculley told CNBC-TV18 in an interview. This is pretty steep target for a totally new firm, which will be competing with both multinationals as well as home-grown smartphone brands in the country.

No other details are available at this point but we hope to hear more from the company in the coming weeks.