Exclusive | Aiming to be a leader in gaming business: Mitashi's Adnan Chara

Mitashi Edutainment is a home grown electronic gadgets giant, a realization of a dream seen by two enterprising young men –  Rakesh Dugar and Hasmukh Gada. They started their journey with an aim to build a brand that provides the Indian consumer high quality education & entertainment products at an affordable price. Today Mitashi is present across three different product categories i.e. consumer electronics, TV video games (consoles & handheld), educational & musical products, tablets & mobiles. The company has about 88 products in its product portfolio beginning from  Rs 79 to Rs 49,999.

Speaking to Adgully, Adnan Chara, Vice President, Kids & Telecom, Mitashi Edutainment says, “The company has always believed in innovating and launched several firsts in the country like – Mitashi Banaye Crorepati i.e. India’s first Talking 8 bit video game, LCD Cricket Game, Virtual Reality Game and developed several other educational CDs and video games.” At the peak of DVD player boom around 2004-05, it was the largest home grown DVD player maker in the country. Over the years Mitashi has also developed a reputation for providing great sound at very affordable prices bringing home theatres to the masses; it is the biggest domestic producer today.  Besides it also ventured into the manufacture of LCD & LED televisions in 2010 and tablets in 2012.

The company is operating in a technologically dynamic industry characterised by rapid changes. Consumer tastes and demand consumption pattern are changing and this is playing a pivotal in deciding the future of the industry. Consumers are getting younger and more tech savvy. A child who is 2 years old and cannot speak properly knows how to use a tablet and play’s learning games on it. The second change that has come to characterise what companies produce today is that no longer consumer wants to carry multiple devices but want a package (complete device) that satisfies all their needs, A child of 7 to 12 years of age wants to have gaming / multimedia devices (tablets / mobiles / video games etc) which allow him to not only play games but also surf the web, enjoy video, read books, stay connected with his friends and much more.

Even marketing has seen a big shift with time and so has the TG. Says Chara, “Over the years we have seen a complete shift in the decision making, where the power to purchase a product has shifted from the parents to the kids. As kids become more aware and empowered they have essentially become decision takers and pester the parents to get them exactly what they demand.”

While this shift is great for Mitashi, it has also made reaching out to the company’s new TG (the kids) that much harder. Schools typically shun any marketing / gaming activities and parents want their kids to study and not waste time so reaching out to kids has been one of the biggest challenges. “With Kids having growing access to internet and spending upwards of an hour everyday surfing, getting Mitashi visible online is on top of our list. Today our presence in this media is limited but we have recently revamped our website and are also working on increasing our presence on other web platforms to capitalize on this trend. Also cartoon channels are generally the most preferred medium to reach out to them.”

Social media is a place where the company is very active. Adds Chara, “We recently crossed the one lakh milestone and are growing very fast. We love this platform as it gives a direct access to our consumers and is a great way to interact and get feedback from them. Besides regularly sorting their queries, we do a lot of things to keep our fans engaged, from contests to memes to product posts we have a mix of things happening to keep our fans engaged on a daily basis. However we have low penetration on mobile platform as our target audience typically – 5 to 12yrs generally do not have access to the mobiles.” 

As for competition, Chara adds, “direct competition in terms of product is virtually non existent but we compete with a lot of different product categories today e.g. mobiles & tablets, other entertainment & education mediums, so the indirect competition is very intense.” On maintaining edge he feels that the only way to stay ahead in the race is to keep innovating, bring products and ideas that people never even thought about, a good example of this would be the Thunder Bolt which Chara believes is the launch of a new era of gaming.

The company is aware of the threats that characterise every business or product segments. In its case it sees threat coming from Android gaming on the mobile platform. Comments Chara, “This is very big shift from current generation of devices we see from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. So there are no substitutes as of today, however we are wary of cheap Chinese imitations that can easily crop up within a few months.”

The company believes that its strengths lie in strong distribution and product integration. It
has assiduously built marketing presence at over 15,000 brick and mortar (traditional) retail stores, over 1200 modern retail stores and over 100 e-commerce portals. Mitashi has a strong backward integration with its suppliers and is able to develop & customize products unlike other companies. “This gives us an edge over competition as we can tailor make products for the Indian Audiences,” adds Chara.

Mitashi is currently the biggest home grown brand and 3rd overall in the entire toys & gaming industry. It has set a very ambitious goal for itself, to become number 1 by 2015. For this the company has very aggressive plans which will see it launch many new products in handheld and consoles gaming and also into the education segment. Concludes Chara, “The next 2 years will see us introduce a lot of interactive and dynamic products along with several innovations, some we believe will be game changers. With a lot of hard work and a little luck we are confident we can achieve our goal to become the number 1 brand in the toys & gaming industry.