Karbonn and Lava to launch budget Windows Phone devices in India soon

Domestic handset players Lava and Karbonn will launch Windows Phone-based smartphones in the coming few months, the companies announced recently.

Karbonn's Windows Phone devices will be in the price range of Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 12,000. Lava's Windows Phone devices will start at Rs. 6,500.

"We will come out with four devices with Windows [Phone]-based operating system by the end of May or starting of June in the

price range of Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 12,000," Karbonn Managing Director Pradeep Jain told PTI.

Lava International CEO and MD Hari Om Rai said: "A series of Windows [Phone]-based phones will be launched under the Lava brand by July. These will be priced in the range of Rs. 6,500 to 8,500."

Rai said the phones will be based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and will run on the Windows Phone 8 platform.

"We expect the Windows [Phone]-based phones to represent 8-10 percent volume of Lava smartphones starting July-August time-frame," Rai added.

For the Xolo brand of phones, the expected timeline of launch is the coming quarter. "We at Xolo believe that Windows OS has certain goodness to offer for a certain market segment and it will help Xolo reach a desired 15 percent share of the smartphone market by

end of 2014," a Xolo spokesperson said.

Last month, at the Mobile World Congress, Microsoft had announced that it would be working with nine new Windows Phone partners, including Foxconn, Gionee, JSR, Karbonn, Lava (Xolo), Lenovo, LG, Longcheer and ZTE.

HTC, Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are already making Windows Phone-based devices. As per the IDC figures for Q4 2013,

Android had a 78.1 percent share of global smartphone shipments while the Microsoft Windows Phone platform share stood at 3 percent.