Essa Merchant: Life in the Telecommunications Industry
And through this shift, there has been one man who has been there through every bump and rise ever since the 1990s, and that man is Essa Merchant, the founder and managing director of Advanced Group. His brand has been the rising star that bought some powerhouses of brands like Blackberry, Lenovo, Alactel, LG, Motorola, Meizu, Phillips and many more to India.
The telecommunications industry erupted in the early 1990s with the rise of push button telephones. Then came the pager phones days, and, it was in those days that Mr. Essa Ismail Merchant founded Advanced Computers and Mobiles India Pvt Ltd - the brand is now commonly known as ‘Advanced Group’, or ‘ACMIPL’ and is regarded as a legacy name in the telecommunications sector.
It’s no secret that India has seen a boom in advancement in technology in the past couple of decades and telecommunications is the biggest industry that saw changes that created an impact on multitude of levels, beginning from the early rise and adoption of push button telephones to today, an era when it is impossible to find a man without a 4G enabled phones. Mobile phones, from the days of being treated as a luxury are now considered a necessity.
And through this shift, there has been one man who has been there through every bump and rise ever since the 1990s, and that man is Essa Merchant, the founder and managing director of Advanced Group. His brand has been the rising star that bought some powerhouses of brands like Blackberry, Lenovo, Alactel, LG, Motorola, Meizu, Phillips and many more to India.
He relays the life journey of Advanced Computers, and states how much the Indian market has changed from accepting those telephones, and then advancing to feature phones to smartphones and then divulging into different makes, models and types of smartphones. But this change wasn’t easy to come, it took many years of market research to make telecommunications brands realise that India could be a gold mine of market, and then it took several years for the Indian consumer to alter his ways of life to accept a smartphone into his life.
But yet still, he says he wouldn’t trade the journey for anything and if anything, he’s proud of the many lessons, experiences, and friends this journey has presented him with. And he hopes to share this life journey and the plethora of lessons he’s learnt with the young generation, and to act true to this endeavour, he had recently launched his very own blog-site, EssaMerchant.com
In the meantime, he hopes to take his brand, Advanced Computers and Mobiles India Pvt Ltd, on a magnitude of success to explore the many possibilities, opportunities, and experiences that life has to present him with.