Homegrown Micromax Laying Off 'Dozens Of Staff' As It Shifts Focus Towards EV Venture: Report

Once a leading smartphone brand in India, Micromax is now shifting its focus from handsets to mobility and it has laid off "dozens" of employees.

The domestic handset maker started as a small IT company. Representative image.

Source : Micromax

Homegrown handset maker Micromax is looking to foray into the electric vehicles (EV) market, in the wake of falling smartphone sales. Its last smartphone launch was back in April 2022. Once a leading smartphone brand in India, the company is now shifting its focus from handsets to mobility and it has laid off "dozens" of employees, says a report by TechCrunch. The company has witnessed the departure of several senior executives, including the chief product officer (CPO), Sunil Joon, who quit and joined DISH Network in Colorado, the US, says his LinkedIn page.

Other top executives to leave the company include the chief business officer (CBO) who quit in the past few months. The domestic handset maker started as a small IT company, founded by Vikas Jain, Sumit Kumar Arora, Rahul Sharma and Rajesh Agarwal. It eventually started making mobile phones in 2008. However, it was left behind by fast-growing Chinese handset makers such as OnePlus, Xiaomi and Oppo, and the advent of 4G. Asus was another phone vendor that created a buzz at that time, on the back of its ZenFone lineup of devices.

The TechCrunch report added that the homegrown brand has announced dozens of job cuts at both its headquarters in Gurugram and other branches in India. The layoffs have happened across Micromax's R&D and logistics, sales, product, testing and the rest of the business. Quoting patent filings and sources, the report added that Micromax is now eyeing the mobility space and its new venture would focus on two-wheeler EVs.

 

Micromax pipped Samsung to become the top handset vendor in India in August 2014, as per market intelligence firm Counterpoint Research. Micromax had replaced Nokia for the first time to become the top feature phone supplier in the country. The same year, Micromax had announced that it would make devices that can run on Microsoft's mobile operating (OS) apart from running on Android OS.