Lava International

Lava International, is an Indian multinational electronics company that specializes in smartphones, laptops, consumer electronics. It was founded in 2009 as an offshoot of a telecommunication venture. It is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India and has overseas operations in Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mexico, the Middle East, Pakistan and Russia. The company started its Africa operations by launching its product in Egypt in 2016.

Lava is working towards establishing a mobile phone design centre in India and setting up new manufacturing facilities. The company has an in-house R&D and product-testing set-up in China and India for product design and development.

History
Lava was founded in 2009 by Hari Om Rai, Sunil Bhalla, Shailendra Nath Rai and Vishal Sehgal.

Products
In 2012, chip-maker Intel tied up with Lava to announce the first smartphone in India with an Intel processor, the Xolo X900. With this handset, the Xolo brand was launched. Lava entered the tablet market in the same year with the E-Tab Z7H.

In 2014, Lava launched its flagship smartphone, Iris Pro 30, which was also the first in its Iris Pro series. The Lava Iris X1 was among the earliest smartphones in India to run on the Android Kitkat (4.4) operating system.

In December 2014, the company launched its first smartphone running on the Windows Phone operating system, the Iris Win1.

The Xolo X50 smartphone, which runs on the Android Lollipop (5.1) operating system, was launched in July 2016.

In February 2017, Lava launched 4G Connect M14, India's first 4G enabled feature phone.

In January 2021, Lava launched the Z1, Z2, Z4, Z6 and myZ, the world's first customisable smartphones. Lava also launched BeFIT Fitness Band

Offices
Lava is headquartered in Noida sector 64, Uttar Pradesh, India. The company maintains 6 offices and 3 manufacturing and service facilities throughout India.

Market share, revenue, and rankings
According to the IDC Asia Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker 2014, Lava's market share in India was 8%. In the financial year 2015-16, Lava had a turnover of US$1.2 billion. Lava was ranked India's fifth most trusted mobile handset brand, and the 75th most trusted among 1,200 brands by The Brand Trust Report 2014. In the same year, the company was ranked the fourth largest smartphone brand in India by IDC.

Research and development
For designing and developing its products, Lava has set up a research and development facility in China. This facility has produced phones such as the Lava Z25 Iris Pro 30 and the Fusion application for Android.

Lava received an award from the government of Uttar Pradesh in July 2017 for hiring the most number of apprentices in the state. The company hired 710 apprentices from Uttar Pradesh in 2016 in keeping with the guidelines laid down in the Apprenticeship Act, 1961.

Distribution
Lava has a single-layer distribution model, wherein more than 900 distributors across India are directly managed and controlled by the company.