UPWARDLY MOBILE

Sayyed Hamid built his FONE4 empire from scratch and is poised for greater heights

- Sujit Chandra Kumar

Mobile and automobile are the twin passions of Sayyed Hamid, the youthful and dynamic boss of FONE4, the popular retail chain in Kerala for mobile handsets. While the former obsession helps him qualify as one of the most promising and upwardly mobile entrepreneurs in the state, the latter makes him a man always on the move. If you try to reach him on his mobile phone – right now a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 but he changes one every six months – during the day, chances are that he may be driving down on his Lexus from Kochi to Bangalore, where he has set up his base now. Nothing gives him greater pleasure than driving along with his family of five in his hybrid car; on his wish list now is an electric vehicle that would be cost-effective and non-polluting.

His journey as a businessman started in 1997 from a room that his father owned in Kochi’s Penta Menaka, which is now a hub for all kinds of electronic products. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not inherit a business empire but built it from scratch from that one-room shop that he personally managed in those days along with two assistants.