— PHOTO: S. SUBRAMANIUM

SEAMLESS CONVERGENCE: Aymar de Lencquesaing, Senior Corporate Vice-President, Acer, along with models launches the company’s new line of smart handhelds in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: Acer on Thursday announced its entry into the Indian smartphone market by launching five feature-rich multimedia handsets priced between Rs. 24,000 and Rs. 35,000.

The company also announced its plans to introduce more handsets soon, starting from Rs. 16,000 to capture the fast growing Indian mobile market.

Unveiling the phones here, Acer Senior Corporate Vice-President Aymar de Lencquesaing, who is also President of Acer’s Smart Handheld Business Group, said: “The official launch in India marks the first step of our smart handheld business group in one of the world’s largest and fastest growing mobile markets. Our phones are designed to deliver a seamless convergence of functionalities for both personal and professional use.”

Acer smartphones will be marketed by Delhi-based Vision Distribution Pvtd. Ltd. “Initially, Acer phones will be available in top eight cities, including the four metros. We will then gradually expand to State capitals and mini-metros. Before Diwali, we will be launching new smartphones with prices starting from Rs. 16,000,” said Vision Distribution Director Rajiv Babbar.

Stating that out of the 70-lakh phones being sold every month, only one per cent or 70,000 phones are smartphones priced at over Rs. 15,000 that are mainly sold in top ten cities including the four metros, Mr. Babbar added that they were targeting 10 per cent of this market.

Informing that Acer smartphones are being imported from Taipai, he further said they had tied up with all top retailers including Croma and Reliance to retail Acer phones.