Lava in venture with Egypt’s Easy Group

“We have aggressive plans for this market. It will act as a gateway for us to expand into the other African markets,” Hari Om Rai, Chairman and Managing Director, Lava International said on Thursday. “We will leverage Easy Group’s market leadership position in distribution and reach to make our feature phones, smartphones, tablets and accessories available across the country.”

The JV, in which Lava will hold majority stake, will be headquartered in Cairo. It will create 2,000 direct and 5,000 indirect employment opportunities in the next six months and more than 10,000 jobs in the next five years. Lava will be competing with players such as Samsung, Huawei and Lenovo in the Egyptian device market.

Lava, which currently gets 50 per cent of revenue from exports, targets to cover the entire African market in the coming 5 years.

Mr. Rai said the company aims to garner 20 per cent market share in the Egyptian market, which is among the top three handset markets in Africa, by 2020.

Egyptian market

About 1.5 million units are sold every month in Egypt, he said.

Lava currently sells in international markets such as Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mexico and Russia. While the company will currently make the handsets in India and export them to Egypt, it also plans to explore manufacturing opportunities in the African nation.