(Photo/NBD)

Nov. 8 (NBD) -- Smartphone startup Smartisan Technology launched its new mobile phone Nut Pro 2 last night in Chengdu, a Southwest city in China. A new air purifier was also unveiled at the conference, showing the company's long-planned expansion into the air purifier industry.

The new phone features a 5.99-inch Full HD in-cell display with a screen aspect ratio of 18:9, and is priced from 1,799 yuan (271.4 U.S. dollars) to 3,299 yuan (497.8 U.S. dollars), available in five different variants.

Luo Yonghao, founder and CEO of Smartisan, said that his company rose from the dead in 2017. Smartisan went through a tough patch last autumn but it didn't lose the support from suppliers. Luo noted that Smartisan sold one million smartphones in the past six months, a tremendous advancement as compared to its total sales of two million units in the initial five years.

The new air purifier was another highlight to the conference. The product, priced at 3,499 yuan (527.9 U.S. dollars), features a Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) of 800 cubic meters per hour, and it is more cost-effective than products made by the top four brands in the domestic market, Luo stressed.

The penetration rate of air purifiers in China is only about 1 percent at present, but the country's air purifier market is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan (15.1 billion U.S. dollars), with the figure to hit 300 billion yuan (45.3 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, according to the Report of Market Demand Forecast and Investment Strategy Planning on China Air Purifier Industry released by The Chinese Academy of Industry Economy Research. 

Only five out of 100 Chinese households are using air purifiers, so the air purifier market has huge potentials. It is difficult to make profits from smartphone sales, and many investors actually have little faith in this niche sector. But the air purifier industry presents enormous opportunities, which are extremely attractive to Smartisan, Luo told NBD.

The startup is joining the rank of Xiaomi, Jumei.com, and NetEase Yanxuan to grab a share of the domestic air purifier market from well-known brands such as Blueair and Honeywell.

Smartisan is currently moving its headquarters to Chengdu and expects to introduce more new products next year.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn