Micromax has its software development team in Bangalore, with about 75 people acquired from Nokia’s R&D in Beijing and some from Shenzen to support this venture.
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Agrawal said the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Xiaomi, which have their own OS across platforms, are translating what they have done internationally to India.
According to ET report, Micromax is focusing on delivering better human interface, with intent of competing with Chinese brands, which have shown a considerable improvement in Indian markets recently. However, the company is reliant on compatibility with Android apps to remain competitive and so as not to alienate its existing customers, so is building some of its own software into Android rather than creating an OS from the ground up. While Google’s platform continues to dominate the mobile environment, more and more device makers are looking to develop alternate operating systems in order to provide more choices to consumers. Former Amazonian, Ashish Agrawal, and now CTO of Micromax says the first forked Android OS smartphones from the company will be available at the end of the financial year.
The stats, as per the last fiscal year, the Micromax Informatics is at the second position in the top handset sellers in the Indian smartphone market, as the firm has managed to sell out around 3 million units in a month, which leads it to generate a revenue of nearly Rs. For example, Samsung has its own Tizen OS and Xiaomi has also been rumored to embark on a similar endeavor soon.
According to Micromax Co-founder Vikas Jain, being a local producer is an advantage, so that it is easy to understand the needs of the customers. The company has also begun investing in startups that build services which can be integrated into devices – for instance health start up Healthifyme, online travel portal ixigo and US-based consumer cloud provider MiMedia.
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The forked Android OS is being developed by the company’s software team in Bengaluru. They will work together to build the apps ecosystem and partnerships back home.
