Can Big Brands Survive The Budget Smartphone Market?
Flagship mobiles ranging from Rs.30,000 to Rs.55,000 are not a hard choice anymore. There are clear reasons to go for Samsung mobiles, LG, HTC, Motorola or Sony based on your needs and they clearly dominate top end spectrum of the market with clear advantages in hardware and overall package.
But the same doesn’t apply to the budget smartphone and mid-range section of the market now.
Choosing a Mobile in price range between Rs.8,000 to Rs.25,000 is harder than ever. With so many
competitive options from new players in the market and presence of high quality Chinese OEM’s the
decision making is getting tougher.
As consumers we always want the best known brand and maximum value for money, but do big brands offer the same value for money they used to anymore? Let’s have a look at how the smart phone landscape has changed and if it’s for the better or for worse. Three to four years ago an unknown brand or a relatively new brand automatically meant subpar experience and bad build quality because it was mostly tier 2 and 3 Chinese manufacturer in the market or Indian companies with re badged Chinese phones. This was one of the main reason many new phone companies never survived through the Nokia, Sony and Blackberry era, since all they brought to the table was low pricing with abysmal service and quality.
Things have changed and mostly for the good with top tier Chinese manufactures, like Xiaomi, Oppo and Meizu, entering Indian market. These brands are offering high quality products at low pricing and forcing the Indian companies to pick up their game. Their marketing is also strong enough to get the attention. Best thing about this is that the term budget smartphone doesn’t mean a compromise anymore and companies are offering great phones even at lowest of budgets which consumers are embracing. Flash sales from companies like Lenovo, Xiaomi, Oneplus on Flipkart and other online marketplaces managing to sell out all their stock in under 10 minutes week after week is a testament to just that.
If you take a look at the offerings right now none of the tier-1 manufacturer can compete in budget and mid-range segment of the smartphones anymore, Motorola being the only exception, which making a comeback story after short affair with Google. After testing many budget and mid-range phones I can gladly say that even phones which are priced at just Rs.8,000 offer smooth and seamless experience while still maintaining decent build quality.
Older companies now realize that to survive in such a highly competitive market they not only have to offer competitive pricing but also top tier service and quality of products. This has led to many big
companies to stop offering phones in the budget segment altogether and focus on the top-end and mid-range devices only. This strategy is similar to what Micromax did in Indian market. They launched by capturing the lower most segment and then went up with the canvas series. The newer companies are doing the same by generating volumes and buzz with lower end of the market and then slowly go up to cash out on the buzz.
Author The Author:
This article is written by Priyanka. She is a tech enthusiast and currently works with MyPriceIndia – a price comparison platform for consumer electronics.
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