On Friday, the Chinese vendor Xiaomi announced a price drop of Rs 5,000 on its Mi 4 smartphone. Samsung also provided a discount of Rs 6,000 on the Galaxy Grand Max for a day. These huge price cuts show the strength of the fight that these vendors are putting up to lure the buyers. It also violates the nature of the Indian market that is the second largest in the world afterChina.
The two leading smartphone sellers inIndiaare Samsung and Micromax, and they have a combined market share of 48 percent though it is not clear which one of these is leading. However, there is a sizzling competition for the other three spots with five companies in battling to be ranked three to five in the market. Of these five firms, three are native toIndiaand they are Karbonn, Lava and Intex and the other two are Motorola and Xiaomi that are from overseas.
These rankings change almost every quarter and they highlight the intensity of the battle that the vendors fight with very minimal margins, new entrants and shorter lead times, especially the ones fromChina.
Regarding this, Caesar Sengupta, the Vice President of Product Management at Google responsible for the Android One project claimed that it is a tough market for everyone.Indiais similar to a continent and there are many market segments in it. Unfortunately, Google’s Android One was not a success despite the low price tag and completive specs.
The firms track the competition, industry developments and market share constantly. It is crucial for the firms to plan and forecast the market trends. It approximately takes a couple of months for a firm to launch a smartphone with similar specifications and lower price tag.
Also, the average lifecycle of a specific model is only five to six months. Furthermore, the firms will have to invest a lot in marketing, design and people apart from scanning for the changes to assemble its units locally. Especially, the mobile manufacturers are selling for local manufacturing after the current year’s budget imposed heavier excise duty on the imported devices.
