Micromax announces A116 Canvas HD with quad-core processor

Micromax launched a new smartphone — A116 Canvas HD — with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, the company’s first quad-core processor smartphone. The price of the smartphone is expected to be below Rs 15,000, and it will be available in India from the first week of February 2013. Key features of the device include: • A 5-inch HD IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. • It has an 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 4X zoom. • It has internal storage of 4 GB, which is expandable to 32GB via microSD. The device has 1GB RAM. [caption id=“attachment_597208” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Micromax’s Canvas HD in this file photo. IBN-Live[/caption] Micromax also aims to launch nearly 30 smartphones in India this year. At a press conference yesterday, CEO Deepak Mehrotra said, “We have a strong portfolio of products in the smart devices category, which contributes about 40-45 percent of our revenues. We are looking at bringing in 30 new smartphones this year across price categories and take up market leadership position.” While the launch of new smartphones provides more options for customers, the question is whether Micromax will be able to challenge existing market leaders in India like Samsung and Nokia. According to a report , Samsung leads the smartphone race in India with a 41.6 percent share, followed by Nokia (19.2 percent) and Research in Motion (12.1 percent). In a market considered price-sensitive, Samsung dominates the smartphone arena. The South-Korean firm offers a range of options for buyers from flagship devices, like S III and Note II, to small budget devices, like a Samsung Galaxy Y. To break Samsung’s hold on the market, merely increasing the number of devices available may not be enough to do the trick for Micromax. It will need to offer some quality products as well.