iPhone 6 too costly? Then buy this, says ex-Apple CEO

“The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus are excellent products,” says John Sculley, veteran marketer and former Apple CEO, and adds that he believes they are “the best smartphones that Apple has ever launched,” he told Emirates 24|7 hours before he launched his Obi brand in Dubai on Sunday, September 28. 

He hastens to add that for those who are short of cash but still aspire for the best, it’s Obi, the new smartphone brand that he has co-founded.

“We offer phones that have outstanding technology and are designed for young people,” he says.

Obi Mobiles indeed has ambitious plans for the Middle East market. Following its India launch in April, Obi smartphones started retailing there in July, and Sculley says the response has been great so far. 

“This is the Swatch of the smartphones market,” quips Vishesh Bhatia, CEO of Jumbo Electronics, the exclusive distributor of Obi Mobiles in the UAE. 

“We wish to give people the best technology at a disruptive price-point,” he tells Emirates 24|7. The ongoing Gitex Shopper has seen a flurry of low- to mid-range smartphones launched in the UAE, including India’s Xolo and China’s Oppo. 

So who is the Obi phone targeted at, we ask. “It is aimed at young people who aspire to own a high-end phone like the iPhone but don’t have the budget for it,” says Sculley.

With a metal and glass body, rounded edges, octa core processor, 13MP camera, the top-of-the-range Obi Octopus S520 in fact looks like an iPhone. Is that deliberate, and is he targeting the aspirational iPhone buyer?

“Absolutely,” he says. “There is huge opportunity to bring Silicon Valley, high-quality designed product but priced at a very good value, particularly for the younger people who couldn’t afford an Apple or Samsung-type product but really aspire to having a really high quality smartphone,” he says.

An internationally renowned marketing expert, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech start-ups, Sculley is no stranger to competition and earned his chops as vice-president (1970-77) and president of PepsiCo (1977-83), until he became CEO of Apple in 1983.

He held that position till 1993 and, under his management, annual sales at Apple increased from $800 million to $8 billion.

In fact, Sculley compares the marketing of his Obi smartphones brand to that of the original Macintosh brand more than two decades ago. “It really is the same kind of marketing that we used when we launched the original Macintosh. We didn’t talk about technology; we talked about the aspiration of what you can do with technology. We’re doing the same thing with Obi,” he insists.

But still, the sub-$200 category is getting increasingly crowded, and we have very recently seen some brands being launched here in Dubai, including Oppo, Wico and Xolo.

As far as differentiation from the other brands is concerned, Sculley says Obi is well equipped to compete with them.

“Obi will differentiate with commodity brands – like the Xolos, the Carbonns and the Micromaxes – with its industrial design, social media marketing and after-sales service,” he says.

“Products that are designed in China don’t have the edge in terms of design. We have industrial grade design, which we are backing with investments in social media marketing campaigns, and will follow up with after-market service for the customer’s peace of mind,” says Sculley.


“We have a number of marketing brand ambassadors over social media, and our campaign in India has really been very successful,” he says.

“Our vision is to use Obi’s success in each new market to create an international brand, especially targeted at the feature-rich and trendy smartphone segment,” he says.

“Having launched in India with a better-than-anticipated response has helped us set the pace for the Obi expansion blueprint, and now we are expanding our strategy of effective brand building and marketing for superior mobile devices in other regions,” he adds.

What does he expect from this region? “The Mena region presents a huge opportunity for new smartphone devices, with a huge margin of consumers in the mid and affordable smartphone segments. Consumers today want the best feature-rich smartphone experience at desirable price points, without compromising on quality,” Sculley says.

“There is also a growing trend of feature phone users moving towards smartphones. Our analysis has revealed that consumers today are more likely to switch brands as long as they have sufficient incentive. Obi is uniquely positioned to leverage all these changing market dynamics,” he adds.

But how does Obi keep a lid on costs considering it’s got a similar phone and high-end technology than some of the other top-of-the-range smartphones in the market, like the iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4?

“We trail in the technology by six to nine months,” says Sculley. “Tech commoditises so rapidly outdated that it enables us to keep the costs low but still roll out devices that are high-tech,” he adds.

“Some of the other companies have very high overheads. Their business models make it almost impossible for them to make profits at low price-points,” he says.

“Look at HTC, it’s lost money for six quarters in a row now,” he says. “The Xperia as a brand is losing money; Nokia made losses last quarter…” he lists.

“We run a very lean infrastructure model. We focus on what we do best – great design at a disruptive price, marketing and after-market service,” he concludes.

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