Channel Post speaks to Eric Bhagwat, the AVP at i-Life Digital Technology about their plans and strategies for 2018
Tell us about i-Life.
i-Life is a hardware, software and services company. We are dedicated to the research, design, marketing, sale and support of innovative products. Our product offerings include tablet PCs, smartphones, laptops, 2-in-1 devices, PCs, virtual reality devices and wearables. We also develop cloud solutions, with a focus on Internet of Things.
How was 2017 for i-Life?
We started breaking into the market during 2016 with our clamshell laptops. In 2017 we moved onto to full-fledged PC products with better storage capabilities and Celeron and Pentium in terms of processors.
We also launched a portable 17.3-inch All-in-One. This product is very unique, because it comes with a built-in battery. It fits into the African market perfectly, because of 15-hour of power cuts. So, an All-in-One that comes with a battery backup makes perfect sense for that market. The product is also doing quite well on the local market. We have hit a year-on-year 60 percent growth.
Which channel partners do you work with in the GCC region?
iLife currently works with a range of distributors in the GCC region. These include Trigon, Redington, Sands Distribution, and so on. We are currently present in 34 countries. As a Microsoft partner, we have activations in almost 110 countries.
We focus a lot on the Middle East and Africa markets. We are looking at doubling our presence this year. We will also be starting with the Indian market this year with Flipkart, Amazon, and PayTM. We are also selling our smartphone range in select markets such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Kuwait, and so on. We work with MediaTek for our smartphone range.
What is your product roadmap looking like, for 2018?
We will be launching products based on the i3 and M3 architectures by end of Q2 in 2018. Our strength is the thin and light product portfolio. We currently figure in the second position, when it comes to the number of units shipped.
We will however, continue to sell products based on Celeron and Atom architectures. We will also be getting into the gaming market with gaming laptops this year. These gaming laptops will feature high-end specs and will be competitive in terms of pricing. We will focus on offering value for money even with high-end gaming laptops. We are also planning to introduce Chromebooks very soon.
