Bengaluru, March 4 Running out of smartphone battery may soon cease to be an anxiety-triggering moment as Ramani Iyer, who co-founded Justdial, has created a new venture called "Spykke" to provide a smartphone power bank rental service.
Smartphone users with low battery can simply walk to any Spykke partner outlet and rent a power bank by scanning the QR code on it.
Bengaluru-headquartered Spykke said that its power banks are easy to use and come equipped with all Micro-USB, Type C, and Apple-certified lightning cables.
Once used, the power banks can then be returned to the nearest Spykke station.
According to terms and conditions of the service, return of the power bank is the user's responsibility and "Spykke shall be entitled to take any means necessary to retrieve the power bank hardware charges from you if a power bank is not returned or returned in a damaged condition..."
The company said that in just six months, it has achieved the widest smartphone power bank rental network in India, and is currently live across 8,000 locations in 11 cities throughout India.
The smartphone power bank rental industry is a fast-growing segment and is "expected to be worth $15 billion in the next few years," Spykke said, adding that it aims to achieve a lion's share in this market.
"I am optimistic about the opportunities and trends in India. Three big trends are providing strong tailwinds to this industry. 1) India is very open to adopting digital/technology solutions. 2) Indian youth are increasingly adopting a 'sharing economy'. 3) A fast-growing smartphone consumer base," Iyer said in a statement.
"And now, with the doubling of time spent on phone usage in the last year, the pressure on smartphone batteries has never been higher. This is where Spykke comes in Using Spykke, no one has to run out of battery ever!
"That is why, within the last 6 months, we have rapidly spread across 11 cities in India, with a network of 3500 partners and 8000+ charging stations, to become the largest power bank rental business in India," he added.
At present, Spykke is live across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jaipur and Pune.
The company said it plans to add several more cities to the list shortly.
Its deployments are majorly in high-footfall regions such as Metro stations, cinemas, cafes, malls, airports, railway stations, corporate offices, tech-parks, hotels, universities, and hospitals.
( With inputs from IANS )
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