Lava plans to invest in R&D, to raise $90 mn from US fund
By MYBRANDBOOK
Indian phone-maker Lava International claimed that it will raise $90 million (Rs630 crore) from GEM Global Yield fund to invest in R&D with the aim of emerging as a handset market leader in the sub-$150 price segment.
GEM group will make the investment over the next 36 months for through a 'Share Subscription Facility' which will allow the company to sell American depositary receipts to the US fund house in exchange for drawing down available funds, Lava said in a statement.
“The company will use the funds to strengthen its business by funding its research, development and business expansion activities, with the objective of becoming a market leader in the sub-$150 cellular phone segment,” Lava said.
Lava’s smartphone assembly plants have been long under-utilised, with the handset along with other Indian players seeing their share taken over in a market swamped by Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, besides Korea’s Samsung.
But Lava's share has picked up off late. Lava has a 5.3% overall share of the handset installed base. In feature phones, it has an 8.5% share while in smartphones; its share is 3.1%, including Xolo, said research agency TechArc.
Despite the tough competitive scenario, Lava has been making significant investments to ramp up its research and development, and has been snapping up some contract manufacturing deals.
At the peak of Sino-India trade war in August last year, Lava along with Micromax had bagged a Rs 2,500 order for manufacturing sub-$200 devices from US telco major AT&T along with rivals T-Mobile and Sprint.
Lava also bagged a multi-crore deal from US conglomerate General Electric to manufacture hand-held devices meant specifically for medical use in September last year.
Global Emerging Markets is a $3.4 billion alternative investment group that manages a diverse set of investment vehicles focused on emerging markets across the world and have completed 370+ transactions in 70 countries.
Singapore to remove One-Time Passwords from Bank Accounts
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, clients who utilise secur...
Is 375 million Airtel subscribers database breached?
When a hacker claims to have accessed and put up for sale a customer databa...
The government of India intends to construct a single portal f
A single portal will be launched by the Indian government to list all of it...
OpenAI offers GPT-4o, a faster model available to all users at
GPT-4o, a faster and more sophisticated AI model, is made available to all...
ICONS OF INDIA : RISHAD PREMJI
Rishad Premji is Executive Chairman of Wipro Limited, a $11.3 billion ...
Icons Of India : GAUTAM ADANI CHAIRMAN ADANI GROUP
Gautam Adani is the Founder and Chairman of the Adani Group, which ran...
Icons Of India : Anil Kumar Lahoti
Anil Kumar Lahoti, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TR...
IOCL - Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.
IOCL is India’s largest oil refining and marketing company ...
ITI - ITI Limited
ITI Limited is a leading provider of telecommunications equipment, sol...
NSE - National Stock Exchange
NSE is the leading stock exchange in India....
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Satya Nadella, Chairman & CEO- Microsoft
Satya Nadella, the Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, recently emphasized ...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Sundar Pichai, CEO- Alphabet Inc.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc.,...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - AJAY BANGA, President - World Bank
Ajay Banga is an Indian-born American business executive who currently...