Karbonn Mobiles is an Indian smartphone manufacturing company, founded in March 2009. It is a vendor of feature phones, smartphones, tablets and mobile phone accessories. Karbonn is a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between United Telelinks Ltd., a

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

-based firm and Jaina Marketing Pvt. Ltd., headquartered in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Hous ...

. Karbonn Mobiles also has tie ups with leading telecom players like

Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Current ...

Vodafone Idea Vodafone Idea (or Vi, and/but stylised as ''V!'') is an Indian telecom operator with its headquarters based in Mumbai and Gandhinagar. It is a pan-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G, 3G, 4G, 4G+, VoLTE, and VoWiFi service. As of 31 ...

and

Jio Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, doing business as Jio, is an Indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It operates a national LTE network with coverage across all 2 ...

. Karbonn now widely operates in countries such as

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, UAE,

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and a ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

and parts of Europe.

History

The company struck a deal with Eros International Media Ltd., the makers of

Rajinikanth Shivaji Rao Gaikwad (born 12 December 1950), known professionally as Rajinikanth, is an Indian actor, producer and screenwriter. In a career spanning over five decades, he has done 160 films that includes films in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannad ...

-starrer film ''

Kochadaiyaan ''Kochadaiiyaan: The Legend'' () is a 2014 Indian Tamil language, Tamil-language 3D Animation, 3D animated action film written by K. S. Ravikumar and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth. It is India's first photorealism, photorealistic motion ca ...

'' (2013). The deal involved the manufacture of five lakh (500,000) items of Kochadaiyaan merchandise with screen savers and images from the film, the trailer, behind-the-scenes shots, the signature tune of the film, and the lead actor's signature on back cover of phones. Karbonn ties with online digital entertainment service provider Hungama.com and have an app preinstalled. In October 2012, Karbonn announced the launch of their brand extension 'Karbonn Smart'. The range includes a smart tab and

smartphones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

based on Android

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

. In February 2014,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

announced Karbonn as a hardware partner of

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

operating system. Karbonn Sparkle V is one of the initial Android One phones manufactured by Karbonn Mobiles in cooperation with

Google Inc Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...

Brand

Karbonn was ranked the 77th most trusted brand in India among 1,200, by The Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted by brand analytics company Trust Research Advisory. In the 2017 edition of the report, it stands at the 350th position among 1,000 Indian companies surveyed. Karbonn is the first

Android One Android One is a family of third-party Android smartphones promoted by Google. In comparison to many third-party Android devices, which ship with a manufacturer's customized user interface and bundled apps, these devices run near- stock ve ...

phone to be sold in the Europe : Karbonn Sparkle V2. The company entered the UK market through Amazon.co.uk In 2019, Karbonn acquired former chinese mobile giants Gionee after they went bankrupt and control all of its operations worldwide. In 2020 they announced Gionee Mobile as a sub-brand of Karbonn. In March 2022, Karbonn announced that it would undergo liquidations as the company have been facing a severe revenue decline due to the pandemic.

Revenue

The firm's total investment in the Indian consumer market was over US$5 million in the year 2011. The firm contracted with

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...

companies for their

handset A handset is a component of a telephone that a user holds to the ear and mouth to receive audio through the receiver and speak to the remote party using the built-in transmitter. In earlier telephones, the transmitter was mounted directly on ...

s and targets mainly the Indian market. The firm has over 85,000 retailers and 1000+ service centers (150+ dedicated exclusively for Karbonn) across India. Karbonn Mobiles aims at registering a turnover of ₹4,000 crore during the 2013-14 financial year.

References

External links

Official website
{{Major mobile device companies Mobile phone companies of India Mobile phone manufacturers Indian brands Indian companies established in 2009 Mobile phone industry in India Manufacturing companies based in Delhi Electronics companies established in 2009 2009 establishments in Delhi