Mumbai, Jan. 25: First Mobile India will invest an additional $1 million to expand its infrastructure. The company is targeting monthly sales of around 100,000 mobile phones from early next year.

The subsidiary of the $804-million Hong Kong-based First Mobile Group focuses exclusively on distribution of mobile phones. The investment comes at a time when cellular connections in the country in this calendar are projected to surpass 55 million, a near 100 per cent growth.

According to industry analysts, six handset brands are in the process of entering India in the next six to nine months. Last month, Sagem SA of France announced its foray into the domestic mobile market after entering into a distribution alliance with Cenzer Industries.

Other players like Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have intensified their efforts in grabbing the cellular marketshare.

According to First Mobile India managing director Sanjoy Roy, while the parent company has invested close to $3 million in two years of its operations in India, the additional $1 million in the pipeline will be used for expanding the company’s infrastructure.

First Mobile India has 17 service centres at present and this number is slated to go up to 25 by the first quarter of this year and 45 by the year-end. The company has planned centres across the country, including Indore, Calcutta and Pune.

“We are here for the long haul. We will participate and contribute to the growth of cellular business in India,” Roy said.

Roy said the handsets are priced marginally more than those in the gray market. Therefore, customers can avail of after-sales services of multi-brand mobile phones at gray market rates.

Roy said the monthly sales target of one lakh mobile phones is not ambitious as it forms only 1 per cent of the total handset market size per month.

First Mobile India has been distributing handsets through its channel partners, thus indirectly serving close to 3000 retailers. The company is not ruling out approaching the customer directly as and when accorded the green signal by the Centre.

Though First Mobile India is the exclusive national distributor for Philips and BenQ, it also distributes other mobile phones.