I recently visited Smartron’s HQ in Hyderabad and got a chance to ask Mahesh Lingareddy who is Founder and Chairman of Smartron, some interesting question about IoT. Read the interview below.
Tell us about the IOT/ tech industry and where does Smartron stand.
Internet of Things (IoT) combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents the next mega opportunity for the technology industry. By 2020, there will be approximately 20.8 billion IoT-enabled devices according to Gartner Research, while IDC projects a $1.7 trillion global IoT market.
Tell us more about your recently announced AI platform tronX(TM)™ and its benefits
Smartron is the only Indian company building a global brand by bringing tronX™, a unique and the most comprehensive AI powered IoT platform delivering highly intelligent and personalized experiences and services through range of smart devices, systems, vehicles and sensors targeting various verticals from personal to health to home to infrastructure to education to agriculture to energy. TronX™ combines state of the art AI and IoT capabilities to make us, machines, industries, infrastructure and government more productive, efficient, safer, secure and richer. Smartron has developed its own Natural Language Processing (NLP), deep learning and machine learning capabilities to compete at a global stage. TronX™ addresses localization and regionalization in a very unique way to deliver value to all customers. Eg. India has multiple languages and cultures and tronX™ will be able to integrate and takes into account the local ecosystem to cater to the requirements of specific markets.
Tell us about your product lineup in smartphones and IOT/AI
Smartron, India’s first global IoT brand, has been working on building an IP and innovation driven product ecosystem that is truly global in its being. We recently unveiled our tronX™ platform which is an intelligent AI powered IoT platform and we are focusing on Health, Home, Infra as well as Personal consumer usage verticals as our key business areas for the coming 12-18 months. In addition, we will be bringing in dozens of smart devices and things over the next 12-18 months ranging from wearables to compute and mobile products, electric vehicles as well as smart home products. All of these products will be connected to the tronX™ core which will lead the AI and Machine Learning space and help us build a robust ecosystem with some consumer oriented services built into the mix.
Do you think Indian market is ready for IoTised ecosystem?
Nobody was ready for a PC, mobile, internet etc. IoT is the same. The market may be or may not be ready. But, a brand like Smartron can proactively create a market opportunity and get the market to adopt tronification. We are already seeing tremendous response from health to home to education to logistics to retail to industrial automation to energy sectors. The Indian market has been adapting to the IoT ecosystem at a fast pace. We have seen startups lead with innovative technology across various industries in the IoT sector. Indian and global startups have been working using IoT for security, infrastructure technology helping road traffic regulations, minimizing accidents of vehicles, enhanced technology to make smart devices at home and work and much more. While enterprises are deploying the internet-connected devices at a faster rate than ever, with over five million “things” connected each and every day of 2016, studies show that the average consumer still lacks knowledge about the terminology surrounding IoT. Motivating the future consumers to adopt the “smart things for life” by understanding their needs and aspirations, then working towards providing them with the right products and service is the right way to go about it.
With lot of players expanding into offline in a bid to increase their market share? What are Smartron’s plan regarding this?
Smartron strongly believes that it’s not about just devices but rather the whole experience that includes an intelligent platform like tronX™, unlimited storage like tcloud and signature customer care like tcare. We believe in utilizing and adapting our channel strategy depending on our consumers’ touch points and convenience. We will be exploring a mix of both online and offline channels for our future products as well. We are committed to providing our consumer our products at convenient locations and at competitive pricing.
