Karbonn, Lava to launch Windows Phone smartphones in few months

Domestic handset players Lava and Karbonn will launch Windows-based smartphones in the coming few months.

Karbonn's Windows phones will be in the price range of Rs 6,000-12,000. Lava's price starts with Rs 6,500.

"We will come out with four devices with Windows-based operating system by the end of May or starting of June in the price range of 6,000-12,000," Karbonn Managing Director Pradeep Jain told PTI.

Lava International CEO and MD Hari Om Rai said: "A series of Windows-based phones will be launched under the Lava brand by July. These will be priced in the range of Rs 6,500-8,500."

He said the phones will be based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and will feature Windows 8 platform.

"We expect the Windows-based phones to represent 8-10 per cent volume of Lava smartphones starting July-August time- frame," Rai added.

For Xolo brand of phones, the expected timeline of launch is the coming quarter.

"We at XOLO believe that Windows OS has certain goodness to offer for a certain market segment and it will help XOLO reach a desired 15 per cent share of the smartphone market by end of 2014," a Xolo spokesperson said.

Last month, at the Mobile World Congress Microsoft had announced that it would be working with nine new Windows phone partners, including Foxconn, Gionee, JSR, Karbonn, Lava (Xolo), Lenovo, LG, Longcheer and ZTE.

HTC, Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are already making Windows-based devices.

As per the IDC figures of the last quarter of 2013, Android had a 78.1 per cent share of global smartphone shipments while the Microsoft Windows Phone platform share stood at 3 per cent.