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ublicly listed mobile phone manufacturer and distributor Skybee (SKYB) has halted the production of its low-priced mobile phones and plan to focus on the mobile phone distribution business to maintain future growth, a senior company executive has said.

Skybee finance director Meiliana Widjaja said in Jakarta on Monday that the company was forced to stop production because of fierce competition from major international brands that had also entered the low-end market segment, which has traditionally been dominated by local brands.

“Indonesia has more than 80 local mobile phone brands, while Nokia and Samsung are starting to catch the middle-low market by offering products priced between Rp 300,000 [US$31.8] and Rp 800,000,” she said after annual stakeholders meeting in Jakarta.

Skybee started selling its own brand of mobile phones in 2010 at prices ranging from Rp 300,000 to Rp 500,000 per unit. The company failed, however, to meet its sales target due to competition from cheaper items offered by established brands such as Nokia and Samsung.

“We stopped the production, but we still sell the remaining stock.”

Skybee is trying to step up this year’s performance by boosting its reseller business and developing media and software businesses.

The the company booked Rp 1.41 trillion in net revenues last year, up 155 percent from Rp 553 billion in 2010, while its net profit surged 18.5 percent to Rp 22.53 billion from Rp 19 billion in 2010.

“Revenues was mainly contributed by the sales of Blackberry smart phones and business media agency,” said Skybee president director Hendra Kendro.

Skybee is 29.9 percent owned by JPMIB Ora Pro Nubis International Corp., 17.4 percent by JPMIB Creative One Ltd., 11.07 percent by JPMIB Aspires Inc., 14.25 percent by Credit Suisse AG Singapore Trust, 7.74 percent by Syailendra Capital and 24.72 percent by the public.

PT Sinergitama Komindo, a subsidiary in the handphone reseller contributed about 70 percent of Skybee’s revenues, with 80 percent of sales derived from Blackberry phone sales.

The firm’s media agency PT Kaswall Dinamika Indonesia, which was acquired last year, contributed to 15 to 20 percent of Skybee revenues.

In addition to Sinergitama and Kaswall, the firm also holds a majority stake of software developer PT Intouch Innovate Indonesia and interactive multimedia developer PT Numedia Global.

To support Sinergitama’s business performance, the firm would use the majority of working capital to procure mobile phones from different manufacturers, Meiliana said. She declined to unveil the amount of working capital, but said that the funds would be derived from retained earnings, initial public offering (IPO) proceeds and bank loans. Under stakeholders’ approval, Skybee would retain Rp 21.53 billion from the company’s 2011 net profit as retained earnings and to use Rp 1 billion as reserves. So far, the company had used Rp 68.07 billion from its IPO proceeds in 2010 and still has Rp 16.46 billion.

ICBC and Bank Mutiara have offered financing facilities to the firm worth $12 million in total to finance the working capital.

“Besides using the funds to procure products from Blackberry, Sony Mobile, HTC, IPhone and Samsung, we will try to resell more mobile phone brands,” she said.

Backed by strong financing, the company expects 15 to 30 percent revenue growth this year.