Obi Mobiles India CEO Ajay Sharma quits the company

Ajay Sharma, chief executive officer (CEO) for India at Obi Mobiles has quit the company. According to his LinkedIn profile, Sharma left the company last month. Details on his next move are not available as of now.

The development was first reported by The Economic Times. According to the report, Sharma left the firm due to operational issues and flagging sales amid intense competition in the Indian market.

Sharma has over 24 years of work experience in marketing, sales and operations across diversified Industries. Prior to Obi Mobiles, he was the smartphone strategic business unit (SBU) head at Micromax Informatics Ltd. Before that, he was the director- sales operations (India, SEA, and ANZ) at HTC Corporation. He had earlier also worked as a senior GM at Usha Intercontinental (India). Sharma holds a MBA in Marketing from University of Jodhpur.

A venture of ex-Apple CEO John Scully's Inflexionpoint, Obi Mobiles had entered the already crowded smartphone market of India in July last year. At the time, the company had launched its flagship device Octopus S520 in the country.

"This flagship device is an affirmation of our stated commitment to extend the best in class smartphone experience. From hardware specifications to the quality of accessories there are no compromises whatsoever, because we know our young customers conduct their lives around their smartphones," Sharma had said at the time.

While the device was launched exclusively on Indian e-commerce major Snapdeal.com for Rs 11,990, it is currently available for purchase for as low as Rs 7,650.

Obi Mobiles had joined a long list of players eyeing for supremacy in the low and mid-price segment of the Indian smartphone market. Apart from home grown original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Micromax and Karbonn, etc., the company also faces off against Chinese entrants like Gionee, Oppo and Xiaomi.