Talk to it MintIndkal Technologies CEO Anand Dubey said the company is about to complete its upcoming funding round, before it will release its first product offering by design-led electronics manufacturing companies.
“We are currently in conversation with Marquee Investors, including electronic-centric funding to raise our next round. We have multiple semesters, and we are considering using multiple semesters, and we can take advantage of $100 million. Our existing investors will also be part of the next round, and we will close in the next two to three months,” Dubey said. ” Dubey said.
Design-led manufacturing companies make higher profits from their efforts to manufacture consumer electronic devices than pure contract manufacturers. Although the latter only performs equipment assembly and earns primarily through building scale, design-led manufacturers (such as Indkal licensed brands and trademarks) apply their product design to these brands.
A design-led manufacturing route helps generate greater profit margins and more positioning of electronic devices in the country, and it may bring India one step closer to generating more local value. Notable examples of brands that emerged in India through design-led manufacturing routes include the traditional German audio brand Sennheiser and the Taiwanese electronics company Acer, which are customers of India’s Indkal.
Extended to smartphones
“We hope to build scale in the consumer electronics sector starting with smartphones. To do this, we launched the first Acer-branded smartphone in India on April 15 and used a new high-performance chipset in India on April 15,” Dolby said.
The funding round will be the largest capital raised by the Indian Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) company this year, with technology companies undergoing major course corrections in the stock market after the 2024 floating in 2024. Big Fund Quantum said Big Fund Quantum could help Indkal Technologies build scale and prove that the manufacturing model can work, said two people near the company.
Challenges and prospects for the future
“Usually, a design-led manufacturing model is ineffective because when a brand succeeds, it wants to closely control all its products without leaving its design in the hands of a third party. Most brands keep certain reference designs, but ultimately leading to outsourcing of electronic design equipment is the advanced challenge so far so far is the challenge of acr toper to in Indkal. Understanding this matter.
Industry Trends
MINT reported in February that India’s smartphone market is worth more than $40 billion, which is Apple’s US and Samsung electronics products from South Korea, with nearly half of the revenue. The rest of the industry is dominated by incumbents in China, including Xiaomi and BBK Electronics’ sub-brands Oppo, Vivo and Realme.
Currently, the domestic smartphone market is declining, and brands and investors are at a loss recently, stagnating due to weak consumer sentiment. Although the ease of supply of financing has led to a growth in overall revenue in the industry, India’s smartphone market, which is Indkal’s main target, remains below pandemic levels.
“We predict that unit growth in quantity and revenue will be another year of year. While the average pricing per device may increase slightly, the “premium” curve may gradually become flat. In such a market, it may take time for new brands like Acer to create trademarks,” said Navkendar Singh, vice president of IDC IDC.
It is worth noting that HMD Global OY, a manufacturer led by Finnish design, was licensed in 2017, bringing the once-formed mobile phone brand Nokia back to life. However, despite multiple efforts, Nokia’s sales have never stood out and are negligible with market share in India and globally. The iconic brand of China Lenovo Group, the US-born Motorola, is a lonely electronics brand, even if it owns its own electronics brand in a licensed form.
However, Motorola continues to operate as a separate company, which is not exactly the same as the Indkal and Acer brand licensing agreements.
Analysts expect
However, analysts believe that Indkal’s launch efforts may have some impact. “Unlike Nokia, many new brands are doing well. ‘It’s OK’, POCO and IQOO have also achieved good results. Fluidity is a currently active brand in India – it ranks sales of laptops and tablets among the top three brands in India. This means it’s not sales volume, which may be possible at launch. The expectations and brand licensing approaches suggest that Acer may take some time in terms of smartphone sales while trying to try the Indian smartphone market, but whether the company may be able to maintain three years or more in the Cutthroat Indian Market.
At least two executives told Mint. “The domestic stock market is usually friendly to EMS companies such as Dickson, Keynes and Amber, and Indkal may also join the competition in 2026,” the second executive said.
However, Dolby has neither confirmed nor denied negotiations on a public listing at this time.
“This year, the public stock market has been weak. In addition, Indkal’s success will depend on its ability to build scale in the domestic electronic market in India. Many of these factors will be at play before companies should approach the public market.”
Indkal Technologies has not submitted its annual financial report for the 24th fiscal year to the company registrar. In a previous conversation with the Mint last year, Dolby said Indkal’s FY24 revenue went past ₹10 million, can be expanded to ₹At the end of the fiscal year, annual revenue was 30 million.
