Cricketer Ishant Sharma brand ambassador for Fly phones

Mumbai: Upcoming cricketer Ishant Sharma is the UK-based Meridian Mobile's newest brand ambassador for the company's Fly phones.

Ishant Sharma joins Bollywood actress Malaika Arora Khan, who is also a  brand ambassador for Fly phones. His endorsement deal will extend a period of three years, and comes at a time when the company has announced the launch of two new handsets, the MC100 and the LX610.

Reports peg the company's budgeted ad spend at Rs250 crore, spanning print and electronic media for this year. Grey Worldwide will handle the creative duties.

India operations CEO for Meridian Mobile Rajeev Khanna drew parallels between the new, upcoming crickter, and Fly, which is a new player in the Indian mobile handset industry. He said, ''Both Ishant and Fly are the new go-getters and aggressive with a fire to compete in the fast-growing competitive world. Being a new player in the handset industry, Fly phones have the same challenging spirit as in Ishant. Fly with its sporty and hi-tech features is in synergy with the sporty and tech-savvy image of Ishant.''

Khanna predicted that Fly will reach 10,000 premium counters by the end of the first quarter. He said that the company is already on 7,000 premium counters, which would account for 70 per cent of the overall retail sales. Fly has entered into agreements with retail chains such as Pantaloon, Big Bazaar, Essar's 'The mobile store', Hotspot, RPG and Subhiksha Mobile for marketing and retail initiatives.