Retrieving more than 1000 contacts using ngCordova in AngularJS

I am developing an app in Ionic framework which displays all contacts from device to end User and gives option for selection of contacts. I am using ngCordova's $cordovaContacts module for fetching contacts.

This is the service code which fetches contacts from the device.

angular.module('starter.services').factory('ContactManager', function($cordovaContacts, $ionicLoading){
  return {
    getContacts: function() {
      $ionicLoading.show({ template: "<div class='ion-ios7-reloading'></div>"});
      var options = {};
      options.filter = "";
      options.multiple = true;
      options.fields = ['displayName', 'name', 'phoneNumbers', 'emails'];
      //get the phone contacts
      return $cordovaContacts.find(options);
    }
  }
});

Below is controller code which assigns contacts to $scope.contacts variable

angular.module('starter.ctrls').controller('ShareCtrl', function($scope, ContactManager, $stateParams) {

  $scope.contacts = [];

  ContactManager.getContacts().then(function(_result){
    alert("CONTACTS FETCHED: Now rendering in Template");
    $scope.contacts = _result;
   }, function(_error){
    alert("Error: " + _error);
  });

});

It works fine for 100-400 contacts. But for devices with around 1000 contacts, it takes lots of time to fetch contacts from plugin(CONTACTS FETCHED alert in controller is shown after 2-3 minutes). After fetching contacts from plugin it again takes 2-3 minutes to render in UI(using ng-repeat) and most of the times app hangs.

I also searched for pagination while fetching contacts but could not find any option to fetch contacts page wise in ngCordova documentation.
As of now I am testing on android and the app hangs in case of contacts count is around 1000.
How can I improve its performance? I am a newbie to angular and ionic.