Post operationalization of Jio Payments Bank [a 70:30 Joint-Venture between Reliance Industries Limited and State Bank Of India], Jio and SBI are deepening their partnership to bring next generation bilateral frictionless experience with exclusive Digital Banking, Payments and Commerce journeys for their customers.
Jio and SBI are entering into a digital partnership aimed to increase SBI’s digital customer base multi-fold. SBI YONO is a revolutionary omni channel platform offering digital banking, commerce and financial superstore services to customers. YONO’s digital banking features and solutions will be enabled through the MyJio platform for a seamless, integrated and superior customer experience. MyJio, one of India’s largest Over-The-Top [OTT] mobile applications will now bring in financial services capabilities of SBI and Jio Payments Bank.
Jio and SBI customers will benefit from Jio Prime, a consumer engagement and commerce platform from Reliance. Jio Prime will offer exclusive deals from Reliance Retail, Jio, partner brands and merchants. In addition, with an integration between SBI Rewardz [existing loyalty program from SBI] and Jio Prime, customers of SBI will be offered additional loyalty reward earning opportunities as well as broader redemption within Reliance, Jio and other online and physical partner ecosystems.
Sh Mrutyunjay Mahapatra [Deputy Managing Director (Strategy) & Chief Digital Officer, SBI] and Sh Alok Agarwal [Chief Financial Officer (CFO), RIL] exchanging the signed MoU to deepen digital partnership, in the presence of Sh Rajnish Kumar [Chairman, SBI] and Sh Mukesh D. Ambani [Chairman & Managing Director, RIL] in Mumbai
SBI will be engaging Jio as one of its preferred partners for designing and providing network and connectivity solutions. Jio’s highest quality network in urban and rural regions will allow SBI to launch customer centric services such as video banking and other on-demand services. Additionally, Jio Phones will be available on special offers for SBI customers.
Speaking on the partnership, Rajnish Kumar, Chairman – SBI said
As India’s largest Bank with leadership in digital banking, we are delighted to partner with Jio the world’s largest network. All the areas of co-operation are mutually beneficial enhancing the digital foot-print for SBI customers with superior and rewarding customer experiences.
The scale of the SBI customer base is unmatched globally. Jio is committed to using its superior network and platforms combined with the Retail ecosystem to accelerate digital adoption serving all the needs for SBI’s and Jio’s customers.
Racetrack.ai – India’s First AI Innovation Hub for Sales & Support, has raised $5 Million funding from a clutch of national & international investors. The investors include Murali Krishnan [Ex-President & Founding Member, Biocon], Dov Kagan [a renowned USA based investor]. The list also has names of investors from Singapore, Mauritius, and most of its existing investors.
This is really an overwhelming and positive moment for all of us. We are now looking forward and are excited to announce our next overseas operation base in USA, Mauritius and Singapore.
This move will help us delve into newer business verticals like retail, banking and healthcare. This boost in our physical presence will open new doors for us to partner with intercontinental brands and decision makers while helping us to create global footprint in the AI industry.
Being a pioneer in India’s AI sector, this AI startup offers two flagship products: MARVIN & TURING. While MARVIN is world’s first SmartBot for sales & support, TURING on the other hand is world’s smartest online & offline Business Accelerator that helps in better business planning and execution. With these two products, Racetrack.ai is targeting the fast booming $100 Billion AI market. Investors are positive on their recent moves and have high expectations on Racetrack.ai.
Subrat Parida -Founder & CEO, Racetrack.ai
As the global AI market is rocketing up, Racetrack.ai is focussing on business verticals like BFSI, Education, Health, Hospitality, and Real Estate. With the possibilities, capabilities, and scopes getting wider, Racetrack.ai is all set to expand its operation base to USA, Singapore, and Mauritius.
About Racetrack.ai
Racetrack.ai – India’s First AI Innovation Hub, endeavours to empower businesses by igniting meaningful communication with consumers. It helps businesses to understand consumers: analyse their requirements & sentiments, suggest them solutions and ensures smooth on-boarding. Racetrack.ai believes Artificial Intelligence as a handshake between humans and modern-day machines to address the vital needs of consumers. For more information, please visit Racetrack.ai
Lenovo and Intel have announced a partnership with Paytm Mall, owned by Paytm Ecommerce Pvt Ltd. With a collective aim to reach out to 10 million Small and Medium Businesses [SMBs] by 2020, under this partnership, Paytm Mall will host a unique Lenovo brand store on its platform to drive discovery and instant purchases of the SMB range of laptops.
The brand store will enable the customers to make instant purchases and avail exciting cashback offers. The consumers will have the advantage of a large assortment of readily available products under one umbrella, fast delivery and protection against in-transit damages. This collaboration will provide a seamless shopping experience with added online benefits for the consumer. The SMB customers can obtain a GST invoice which will help them claim input tax as well. Apart from this, there will option to purchase laptops on interest free EMIs. The platform is also offering low-cost extended warranty and lucrative purchase offers to SMBs.
SMBs are at the forefront of driving economic growth of the nation. While SMBs are driving tremendous innovation, they still face challenges when it comes to adoption of the right IT infrastructure to gain operational efficiencies. With this association, we look forward to empower our customers with the right range of products and services which enhance their buying experience and improve productivity. This partnership also enables our partners and provides them with Paytm’s wide digital network leading to a superior quality shopping experience for our consumers.
We have announced the availability of SMB-focused notebooks on our platform in partnership with Lenovo and Intel. This partnership will enable the SME community to get the widest range of products, doorstep delivery and exciting offers all in one place.
This initiative is in line with Intel India’s effort to engage with growing business to establish the relevance of technology in general, and PCs in specific. Lenovo’s Intel technology powered devices, combined with Paytm’s significant reach, will enable the 11 million plus SMBs in India to not only become more efficient, but also to explore newer business opportunities.
SMBs can choose from a broad portfolio of products that include Intel’s 8th gen powered E series, V330, ThinkPad T series, X series and the convertible range of the Yoga series. The price of products will range between Rs. 39,900 ~ Rs. 89, 692, depending on the configuration.
It’s always better to retain customers than to attract new ones because the cost involved in getting new customers is much higher. Around 90% of consumers shop from different brands and are not loyal to any one in particular. Therefore, it’s important to focus on developing consistent customer relationships.
Let’s take a look at four of the best ways to do so
1. Get to Know Your Customers
The more you know your customers, the better your retention will be. Do research to understand their needs and desires and what delights them the most. Understand why they make a purchase.
From your previous experience, map your customer journey. Explore the available data and analytics to understand your customers’ behavioral pattern and trends.
2. Standardize the Process
Maintain a standardized process throughout your company for a great customer experience. Create clear guidelines and make sure your employees follow them. Address different situations while preparing guidelines so that your team can be prepared for anything.
Go out of your way to give your customers an amazing experience. Surprise them. Never let the quality of your customer service drop in any circumstances.
3. Train Your Employees Properly
Train your employees, especially your client-facing and client-interacting team members. Hire the best professionals for client handling and then arrange regular workshops to keep them updated. Provide a holistic customer experience on all platforms.
4. Deliver Unified Customer Experiences across channels
To maintain consistency in customer service, it’s important to standardize it across different channels. Customers expect to receive similar experiences on all channels. They don’t like to repeat themselves if they have already told you their issue in some way.
Therefore, it’s important to keep track of every conversation you have with them. Address all of their issues promptly.
Tips and Tricks
Be it social media, your blog, or in a newsletter, stay connected with your customers often.
Find out which social media platforms your customers use the most and accordingly create a strong presence there.
Increase customer engagement.
Feedback is a very important part of building a customer relationship. Listen to what your follower have to say about your product and services.
Show them that you are acting according to their feedback.
Always appreciate them if they say good things about you, and try to solve any grievances they have. Keep in mind that you should never take a reactionary approach with customers.
Make them feel special and let them know that their opinions matter.
Leverage Inbound Marketing
Use customer-generated and influencer content to spread the word about your brand. There is nothing more effective than a good customer testimonial.
A happy customer is indeed a part of your salesforce, as they have more credibility than your salespeople have. After all, trust and credibility are the backbones of a long-term customer relationship.
Check out this infographic to discover more about these customer relationship building tactics.
Samir Motwani is a growth hacker cut from a different cloth than most entrepreneurs. This action oriented technophile may have been trained as a developer, but is a designer at heart. He is currently the CEO of Salesmate, a CRM tool, that is adept at developing low-cost strategies for startups, and defining best practices for budding ventures. You can find more about Samir Motwani here.
The world’s largest ride-sharing company, Uber, hit yet another milestone in the India and South Asia region as they rolled past the 1 Billion mark. The billionth trip took place in the city where Uber took its first trip in India, five years ago – Bengaluru. Six other trips started at the same time – one in Mumbai and two in Hyderabad, three in Delhi.
Speaking about the milestone, Pradeep Parameswaran, Uber India and South Asia’s newly appointed President of Rides, said
This is a very exciting and significant milestone not just for the India & South Asia region but for Uber as a whole. This 1 billion mark is a testament to the impact that technologies like Uber can make towards redefining the future of urban mobility.
As we gear up to deliver the next 10 billion rides in the region, this will continue to inspire our efforts to provide a convenient and affordable ride to millions of riders and stable earning opportunities to millions of driver partners, across multiple modes of transportation.
Interestingly, Uber hit another milestone recently as it completed 10 billion trips globally on June 10. Two trips, one in Ahmedabad and one in Delhi NCR, were part of the 173 simultaneous trips that marked this milestone. Reinforcing the pace of growth that Uber is witnessing in the region, the 1 billion number comes within a year of the company completing 500 million trips in India & South Asia.
Fun facts about Uber’s 1 billion milestone
Billionth trip happened in the city where it all started – Bengaluru. An Uber Premier was requested at 1:16 AM
Six other trips started at the same second on Uber Go [1 in Mumbai and 2 in Hyderabad and 3 in Delhi]
480 million of the 670 million rated trips have been 5-star trips.
The billion trips have covered a cumulative distance of 11.1 billion kilometers – that’s 37 times to the sun and back!
So far, since launch uberPOOL has helped avoid over 200 million kms of independent travel [219,797,766 kms] which have helped prevent over 36,537 tonnes [36,537,000 kg] of CO2 emissions
75% of the billion trips have been requested on an Android device, 24% on iPhone and 1% on Windows device.
With over 19,923 trips taken so far [the highest in the region], Jaswinder Singh from Chandigarh has been driving with Uber since March 2015 and has an overall rating of 4.81
Fun Facts about the 7 simultaneous 1 billionth trips
Of the 7 simultaneous trips, the longest trip covered a distance of 17.4 km and the shortest covered a distance of 1.4 kms
Amongst the 7 driver partners on these simultaneous trips, Bala Raju K from Hyderabad has been driving since Feb 2016 with an overall rating of 4.78
Pavankumar S also from Hyderabad, was the 1 billionth driver partner with the shortest tenure, driving with Uber since 30th June, 2018 with an overall rating of 4.73
The driver partners on the 7 simultaneous trips received an average rating of 4.0, 75% of ratings were 5-star
Riders on these 7 simultaneous trips received an average rating of 4.48, 71% of ratings were 5-star
This milestone and plans for the next 10 billion reiterates Uber’s continuing commitment to India and South Asia. As mentioned by both Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO and Barney Harford, Chief Operating Officer in their visits to the region in the past months, India continues to be central to Uber’s growth story and Uber’s success as a ride-sharing company is hard-coded to its success in India.
There is a famous quote – ‘Risk & Rewards are two sides of the same coin’ and the same is applicable for monetary investments. However, the investment portfolio would differ from person to person since it is dependent on many factors like risk appetite, assets, liabilities, dependencies, etc. and hence, it becomes virtually impossible for any investment firm to cater to varied investment requirements of such a large audience.
There is a wrong notion that investing in Mutual Funds or SIP’s is similar & equally risky as investing in the stock market. Due to this, less than 1.5% of the Indian population invested in equity markets and only 2% of India’s household savings were exposed to equity [as per a report from Bloomberg]. However, times are changing and more & more people are willing to invest in SIP’s for long-term benefits, given that they get proper guidance.
This is the problem that many new-age Fintech companies are trying to solve using Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, etc. by giving investors more personalized tailor-made portfolio suggestions based on their persona, long-term & short-term goals, etc. As it is said, you learn from your own mistakes and the 2008 market crash resulted in an Aha moment for entrepreneur Arjun Sarkar. Though he lost a significant amount of money in the crash due to misguidance, he soon realized that it was a ‘larger’ problem that required to be solved. Arjun Sarkar, along with Anup Abhonkar co-founded Everguard Life Ventures Pvt. Ltd. and came up with their first product named SIPtm with the aim to make equity investing simpler by taking investor’s persona and various other data points into consideration. In this episode, we have a chat with Arjun Sarkar, Founder & CEO of the Pune-based startup. The Q&A revolves around the core product SIPtm, fintech, persona-based investing & more. Let’s get started with the Q&A…
Note – ‘I’ in the interview refers to Arjun Sarkar.
Can you walk us through the idea of SIPtm and the team behind the same ?
Idea of SIPtm came to solve the problem of investing for retail investors i.e. answering the questions – Where to invest?, When to invest?, and How much to invest? Because the investor does not know what to do, they invariably go for the default option i.e. trust their friendly neighbourhood bank which is the worst decision they can make. Personally I lost a significant portion of my net-worth in the 2008 crash because I was misled by my relationship manager and invested in the wrong product, that’s when I started taking this subject seriously.
The team comprises of myself – Arjun Sarkar, CEO & Founder of Everguard Life Ventures Pvt. Ltd., the parent company behind the development of SIPtm. I have an MBA from University of Toronto. I have personally managed money for CXO’s and NRI’s in tens of crores for close to a decade and 80% of my personal wealth is invested in mutual funds.
Anup Abhonkar, CTO & Co-Founder has over 18 years of IT experience across domains like Banking, Insurance and Securities. He has worked for leaders in the industry like, Accenture, Barclays and Wipro delivering business critical solutions for Fortune 500 organizations like Aviva and Charles Schwab.
Both of us are passionate about our field. Ask our wives and you will find that we spend most of our time talking about the subject.
What does ‘tm’ stand for in SIPtm ?
TM stands for Through Mobile.
What are some of the data points that you take while recommending a particular SIP or Investment to a particular customer ?
We follow a thorough process backed by research, where we consider multiple quantitative and qualitative factors across domains like Economics [Macros and Micros] and Market and also take customer specific inputs like time-horizon and quantum of investment before suggesting a fund. Research further shows that some categories of funds are better suited for SIP mode of investments so we take that in to consideration as well.
In other words, it is not a cookie cutter approach of following ratings of funds or just looking at the past performance of funds. We are talking investments here, not buying e-commerce products where customer can buy just based on reviews and ratings, they may do well in the short term but will not able to sustain it for a meaningful period of time.
Please talk about ‘Persona Based Investing’ and how can millennials use a platform like SIPtm to plan their investments and maximize their savings ?
‘Persona based investing’ is a concept which maps life stage of investors to priority goals which then helps to filter the optimal investment mix for them. SIPtm is a great product for millennials as it is prescriptive in nature i.e. it is like a doctor listing out the medicine and the dosage which makes decision making very simple. More importantly, the dosage or SIP amounts are in the range of typical monthly savings which can be channelized in a disciplined manner thereby earning much higher returns than other traditional saving products like recurring deposits or insurance products.
Which is the target market segment of SIPtm and can you share some details about the customer demographics of SIPtm ?
Target market segment of SIPtm is people with regular income as SIP mode of investing is a good fit for them.
There are lot of Fintech companies like Scripbox, Sqrrl, etc. that are into goal-based investments, what are the USP’s of SIPtm over their competitors ?
SIPtm is a vehicle to achieve goals but takes a different route than its competitors to reach the goal faster, more predictably and with less volatility. The USP is in the name itself, the app is built ground up for SIP investments only i.e. no lump sum investments which makes the journey less bumpy and more predictable.
The other differentiator is that SIPtm offers a complete solution, right from prescribing the monthly SIP amount, to selection of funds, to distribution of monthly amount between the funds. More importantly, it re-balances the portfolio at appropriate times during the journey i.e. It does not take the fill it, shut and forget it approach.
We are a fintech company i.e. a financial services company that leverages technology to make life easier for our customers. Not the other way round i.e. a technology company that has built a financial app? The nuance is very important as you are suggesting an investment solution not a consumer commodity like laptops and mobile phones where ratings work.
As per a report, there is very small percentage of investors/would be investors who plan to invest in the Equity market [or MF], how does SIPtm plan to change this ‘resistant’ behavior from investors ?
Resistant behaviour is because of fear of loss – The answer is SIP mode of investing as SIPs manage volatility better and as a result, give higher returns at lower risks. Also, SIP amounts are small, so you are not putting a lot of money at risk at any point in time. In case of SIPtm there is another level of assurance, as the suggestions are coming from experts based on 5000+ hours of research. There is also a visible change in the behaviour in the recent times, as per latest figures, India is raking in over a billion dollars in SIPs per month now.
What is the Total Addressable Market [TAM] that you are trying to address with SIPtm?
20 Million SIPs with average investment of Rs 5000 per month
How is the response from the early adopters of SIPtm and what are some the best features that are liked by the community ?
The response from early adopters is great with SIP values ranging from Rs. 5000 right up to Rs. 20,000 per month. The best feature liked by the community is the prescriptive investment suggestion and the overall simplicity of the investment experience.
Currently how many AMC’s are syndicated on the SIPtm platform and how frequently the data is updated on the app ?
This is one more differentiator for us, we have shortlisted only the top 5 AMCs of the country based on some key criterion’s, one of them being the staying power and that is a conscious decision. We may add a couple more in the near future if they pass the criterion’s that we have laid out.
SIPtm Core Team – Anup Abhonkar, Co-founder & CTO [L], Arjun Sarkar, Founder & CEO [R]
Once the user has created an account on SIPtm [and all his investments from various AMCs are under one window], what other services does your team provide to the investors so that they can get more returns from their investments ?
The most relevant and important service provided is the rebalancing of the portfolio and timely interventions to ensure that the customer goal is achieved in time.
Can you give a small glimpse about the tech behind SIPtm ?
SIPtm App has a very simple process flow and UI only because, underneath lies a network of multiple systems, including the App back-end, payment gateway, our back-office tech and RTAs and these systems talking to each in a secure and efficient manner through APIs.
What is the on-boarding process for customers on SIPtm and how has initiatives like IndiaStack, Aadhaar, etc. helped Fintech companies like SIPtm in on-boarding & other services ?
The Customer on-boarding process is very simple and totally paperless. We take minimalistic information from the customer as a one time setup. We know paper work is boring, however this basic information is a part of the Regulatory requirements. After verifying the Customer information, we activate the customer. The customer then goes for the eMandate process. Here is where we use the Aadhaar based e-Sign process that is very simple and reduces the manual 15 days process to just 3 days. So yes, Aadhaar helping immensely in reducing the cycle time as well as going paperless.
SIPtm is currently limited to MF’s/SIP’s, are there any plans/timeline on whether it would be expanded to cover other financial instruments ?
Not in the immediate future as we want to focus all our energy in one area that we are really good at and an area that is under penetrated.
With growing investor and entrepreneur interest in Fintech, many wallet companies like Paytm via PaytmMoney, FreeCharge, MobiKwik, etc. have launched a boutique of finance products on their platform, does this growing competition have an impact on a startup like SIPtm and how it could result in expansion of the fintech ecosystem ?
We do not consider wallet companies as competitors as they do not have the expertise or experience in mutual fund investments. It is like going to a pharmacist who just stocks different products and asking them for a recommendation on medicines to treat a serious disease. But the fintech ecosystem can benefit if the wallet companies tie up with players like SIPtm as, as they can generate an incremental revenue stream and actually add real value to their users by helping them generate wealth vs earning cashbacks.
Does SIPtm charge any commission from the investment that is being done on the platform ?
Not directly from the customer but through the AMCs we have partnered with. That being said, we do not push mutual funds suggested by the asset management companies as a typical distributor does, just position funds shortlisted by our algorithm.
What is the revenue model of SIPtm and does it follow the Freemium model & do you plan to be a preferred investment partner for enterprise customers ?
As of today our revenue model is commissions. Yes, we plan to partner with enterprise customers in the future but the value proposition for them has to be worked upon.
There is a growing demand of products like SIPtm in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities [and beyond], what are some of the marketing initiatives that your team has taken in order to penetrate into that particular market ?
Yes, we are in talks with potential partners who have a strong existing network in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
SIPtm is backed by a very experienced founding team and there are very experienced domain-expert mentors behind SIPtm, how has the mentorship helped your team in building the ‘right set’ of features on SIPtm ?
The mentorship has helped us focus on the essentials and cut out the noise. Some of our key decisions on the product road-map have come through the regular calls we have with our advisors. The right set of features has come through a market research project we conducted for our target segment before developing SIPtm and we continue to collect feedback from our live customers.
Can you touch upon the funding of EverguardLife Ventures & are looking for institutional funding in the near future ?
Everguard is internally funded as of now, but we are looking for institutional funding this year for product development and marketing.
The app is currently present on Google Play Store, is there any timeline for the app to be released on the iOS platform ?
We are currently focussing on building traction and incorporating valuable feedback into the Android version. Work on the iOS version is underway and we shall release it shortly.
Do you plan to follow an app-only strategy or there is a plan to open-up a desktop version of the SIPtm platform [since it would definitely be useful for users who log-on the platform from their work location] ?
SIPtm is an app as mobile phones are the preferred mode for our target segment based on our customer research. That being said the algorithm that runs SIPtm is based on our earlier desktop platform called Finanswer which we plan to develop further for other target segments.
After demonetization, there has been a huge demand for payment apps [including UPI], wallet providers providing investment options like Digital Gold, etc. do you see that trend working in favor of apps like SIPtm [that makes an investor’s life smoother] ?
Absolutely, as users get more comfortable using and moving money through Apps it will help apps like SIPtm. We however, do not see payment apps as serious competitors because of the differentiators we touched upon earlier.
2017 was a tough year for startups [especially from funding point of view], how according to you should entrepreneurs deal with such adverse situations ?
Entrepreneurs should always be prepared and focus on their customers to earn revenue. Also, look out for investors who understand your domain well and who can help raise money when it is required, so that the team can focus on the product and business development.
SIPtm team is currently working out from a co-working space in Pune, what are some of the advantages for a startup/growth company while working out from a co-working space ?
You grow your network and get a chance to test your ideas quickly since the target segment is around you and more accessible.
There is lot of talk about implementation of Blockchain, AI, etc. in Finance & Fintech, what are your comments on the same and where do you see the tech moving ahead in the next 3~5 years ?
The ‘Blockchain’ and ‘AI’ landscape looks promising in delivering value to businesses and thereby increasing customer service levels which is very important in Finance. Organizations currently are trying to get a hang of it in multiple use cases and it will be a mainstay in the near future.
Some books that you highly recommend for entrepreneurs and some closing comments for our readers ?
We work really hard all our lives to earn money but do make our money work hard for us, by the time we realize this, half our working life is over. I would advise your readers to start investing early as time in the market is the most important factor and it is totally under our control. Investing is a process, boring maybe, but definitely life changing if taken up seriously.
SIPtm for Android can be downloaded from here. We thank Arjun Sarkar for sharing his insights with our readers and walking us through his journey. If you have any questions for him, please share them via a comment to this article or email them to himanshu.sheth@gmail.com
Tessol, a Mumbai-based startup in the CleanTech-led cold chain logistics space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount in follow-on equity funding from early stage venture capital firm 1Crowd, and existing investors Infuse Ventures and Ankur Capital.
Founded by IIT Delhi – Harvard alumnus Rajat Gupta, Tessol aims to revolutionize the cold chain distribution in India using its proprietary ‘Energy Storage’ technology based solutions. These products and solutions, while being environmentally sustainable, reduce the lifetime cost of cooling by more than 50% therefore making cold chain on low value products viable.
Over the last few years, Tessol has developed solutions ranging from farm level collection to home delivery and works with the largest FMCG, food processing and e-commerce players in India. Funds raised in this round would be utilized by Tessol for strengthening the current product suite and bringing some disruptive products that were under development to pilot and commercialization.
Rajat Gupta, CEO of Tessol, who has several years of past industry experience, said
There are huge gaps in the Indian food supply chain and while there are several cold chain products available in the market, there is a dearth of viable solutions. At Tessol, we believe in partnering with our customers and working out system level solutions that can drastically impact costs while improving the performance.
We see Tessol occupy a sweet spot at the intersection of India’s underserved cold chain architecture and a vacuum in environmentally-friendly clean energy solutions. Tessol’s farm-to-fork product range serves myriad use cases, application segments and customer profiles, and the breadth and depth of their client roster bears ample testimony to the efficacy of their innovation-driven offerings.
Tessol is one of the very few innovation-driven cold chain product companies. With their superior energy-efficient technology, already adopted by many marquee clients across industries, the company is well-positioned to service the growing demand for cold chain infrastructure.
We are excited about the rapid growth in Tessol’s range of cost efficient, high performance cold-chain solutions, which is bringing in new, quality-conscious customers across end-user segments. We believe Tessol’s technology can, over the longer-term, aid significant reduction in losses in the agri/food chain from the current high levels.
About 1crowd
1Crowd is an early stage investor and startup ecosystem with a unique co-investment lead equity crowdfunding platform and seed & early stage Fund. Launched in 2015 by a team of experienced bankers, with two offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru, the platform has invested in over 17 ventures, with over Rs. 40 crores in AUM. Recently, 1Crowd announced the first close of its seed & early stage Fund. For more information, please visit 1Crowd.
Few weeks back, we had covered the launch of the Comio X1 Note in Bengaluru. This is the Chinese smartphone manufacturer’s first foray in South India. We got a chance to use this latest smartphone from Comio for a couple of weeks and this is the detailed review of the Comio X1 Note.
Comio X1 Note : Overview
The Comio X1 Note is a Android Oreo based smart-phone with some additional enhancements from Comio, we would talk about it in the later part of the review. The device sports a 6 inches Full View FHD+ display with a pixel resolution of 2160*1080p. The screen density is 402 dpi.
Specifications
Display – 6-inch [2160*1080p] FHD+ display, 402 dpi OS – Android Oreo, with minor enhancements from Comio CPU – 1.4 GHz quad-core Mediatek MT8735 SoC, 3 GB RAM Storage – 32 GB storage [with additional micro SD slot along with dual SIM slots] Cameras – 13MP+5MP primary dual camera with auto focus, flash and 8MP front facing camera Connectivity – Wi-Fi, 3G/4G LTE/2G, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG Battery – 2,900 mAh Dimensions – 16.2 x 0.8 x 7.6 cm Weight – 168 grams
The Comio X1 Note is available in offline stores, as well as on Amazon. The smartphone comes in two different variants – Royal Blue & Sunrise Gold. Inside the box, you receive a back cover, charger, SIM removal kit, a pair of headphones, and a screen guard. We received the Sunrise Gold version for the review.
Comio X1 Note – Design
The X1 Note is around 6 inches tall and the display resolution is 2160*1080p. When ‘Note’ is tagged to any smartphone, consumers expect a big & tall display, with a battery with exceptional capacity. Though X1 Note has a huge display, the battery capacity is only 2900 mAh which might be a let-down for the phone.
Talking about the other aspects of the phone, the back cover is made of plastic but you would only come to know once you hold the phone in your hands. From the farther distance, the back cover might not give the plastic feel and would look like it has a metallic back. Since the back cover is very shiny and it is prone to scratches, hence it is recommended to use a back cover with the phone. Since the company is positioning this phone as its first flagship, this is a very good effort to give a premium look & feel to the device. Regarding the other aspects of design, there is the volume rocker on the left side, power button and the dual-SIM tray on the right side. There is a 3.5 mm audio jack along with a micro-USB charging port at the bottom.
As the target segment of the X1 Note might the smartphone-aspiring audience, they have retained the normal USB port instead of opting for the USB type-C charging port which has become a norm nowadays.
Comio X1 Note – Software, Display & other Specifications
Comio X1 Note – Software
As far the software is concerned, the X1 Note has Android 8.0 Oreo. There is very less bloatware on the phone [with only few additional apps like Xender, WPS Office] and the experience is more or less looks like a stock Android one. There is finger-print scanner on the back and it was very responsive. You can also opt for facial recognition to lock or unlock the phone. You can customize the Navigation Bar and opt for your preferred button layout. For ensuring the best possible after-sales service and simplying the service-centre discovery, the X1 Note comes with the ‘Comio Connect’ app which lets you find the nearest Comio Service centre.
‘Venus Broswer’ is the default browser on the X1 Note. It is the first Indian browser providing hyper-regional content covering majoring Indian states. It offers a Light Weight Web Platform for Smart Phones users with advanced functionalities like Browsing, App store and Services [Source]. Since there is limited on-board storage, having a browser like Venus that is light on memory and helps users to do majority of their tasks is a good addition to the phone. X1 Note also has a built-in call recorder and support for 22 Indian languages.
On the very first glance, the back side of the phone might look strikingly similar to the Moto G5/Moto G5 Plus as the rear-camera design & placement is somewhat identical to them. In terms of software features, the phone also has an ‘App-Cloner’ with which the user can have two instances of the same app in the RAM. However, the customization is limited since you can only clone Twitter, Facebook, FB Messenger and WhatsApp. This feature is not completely unique as it is already available in couple of competitor devices in the market.
Comio X1 Note – Display
As mentioned earlier, the display has a 18:9 aspect ratio and the colors look vibrant on the phone.he display is equipped with ‘MiraVision Tuning features‘ which is a set of engines to enhance the display picture quality. This interface allows for interactive tuning with real-time quality feedback, making it easy for users to tailor the picture quality based on their needs.
There are three picture modes – User Mode, Standard Mode & Vivid Mode. User Mode is for power users where you can do Basic Color Tuning [Contrast, Saturation & Change picture brightness], Advanced Tuning [Sharpness & Adjust colors according to temperature]. The viewing angles on the X1 Note are good and performing daily activities like reading e-mails, news etc. is a real pleasure on the X1 Note due to it’s excellent display quality. Though the readability is very good indoors, it falters a bit when taken outdoors, especially when it is sunny outside. Overall, the display looks good [if not great], especially when the price s taken into consideration.
Comio X1 Note – Hardware, Battery & Performance
The X1 Note has Mediatek 8735 processor under the hoods. The processor can be clocked to maximum frequency of 1.45 GHz and 4 ARM A53 cores in order to get the best possible performance with minimum drainage in battery. The MT 8735 is a slightly old processor of the Mediatek family but since the phone is priced handsomely at Rs. 9,999; this step could have been taken in order to reduce the BOM [Bill Of Material] cost. The review unit which we received had the Android security patch dated 5th March 2018. The battery capacity is 2900 mAh which is a slight let-down considering that there would be a good amount of consumption especially in the active use-cases!
The phone comes with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB ROM which can be expandable upto 128 GB via a micro-SD card. Out of 32 GB, around 8 GB was already utilized and 24 GB storage capacity was available. The performance is perfectly fine when couple of apps are kept open, but it might deteriorate and slowly it might become sluggish if you are playing games. In some of the scenarios, we could even see that the app-launch time was more, even though there were no apps running in the background. There are couple of ‘Battery-saving modes’ that might come-in handy when there is very less juice available on the phone. With average daily-useage, the battery on the phone lasted for close to around a day and the consumption is very high when the device is used for HD gaming or HD video viewing use-cases.
In a nutshell, the performance of the X1 Note is average and same is evident from it’s AnTuTu score of 42,524. However, from a user’s perspective we hope that in the future there would be many performance updates available for the phone 🙂
Comio X1 Note – Camera
The X1 Note comes with a 13MP+5MP primary dual camera with auto focus, flash and 8MP front facing camera. The camera has a in-built Image Stabilization. The camera is equipped with features like Auto Focus, Continuous Shot, Smile Shot & Face Detection.
The shots from the rear camera are of decent picture quality. The performance & photo-tuning of the rear-camera was much better when it was used in the HDR mode since in the normal mode, the sharpness of the objects deteriorated a lot and hence, HDR mode is preferred in case you want the best out of the rear camera. There are different filters like Aqua, Gorgeous, Calm, Movie, Sepia, Fresh, etc. in order to give some extra effects to the photos captured using the phone. During the camera testing, we did find some lag especially while taking burst shots. The camera performance can be termed as average since there are phones with much better camera features & performance in the same price range.
Some of the sample images are below
Comio X1 Note – Pricing & Verdict
There are some perks for being a Comio customer since the Comio X1 Note comes with 1 year+ 100 days extra warranty, 30 days replacement*, Buy-back offer*, Screen breakage warranty* and Upgrade offer* [* – More details on Comio.in]. Barring aside these benefits, the Comio X1 Note is competing with many other devices in the market with better specifications & performance that are available in the sub 10,000 price range. This would be the biggest challenge for Comio that has released its first flagship in the Comio X1 Note.
As far as pricing is concerned, both the variants – ‘Royal Blue’ & ‘Sunrise Gold’ are priced at Rs. 9,999. The Comio X1 Note in Royal Blue & Sunrise Gold are available online on Amazon.in here and here.
What are your thoughts on the Comio X1 Note, do leave your feedback in the comments section…
