Retains Top Slot, Improves Lead
In FY 2013-14, Samsung became the only smartphone vendor in India to have presence throughout the price spectrum
Samsung retained its leadership position in FY 2013-14 in India in the user devices segment. Clocking close to 37% growth the company led the
Voice&Data Top 10 equipment companies’ tally as well, and had a significant role in pulling up the overall industry YoY growth. The driver for this spectacular uptake is strong growth of smart devices in India, growth of 3G and evolving device usage patterns of end users in India, many of whom are either going for a device upgrade or are the first time smartphone users.
During this fiscal, Samsung strengthened its galaxy line of smartphones catering to price points ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000, making it the only smartphone vendor in India having its presence throughout the smartphone price spectrum. This helped Samsung reach out to a broad range of customers with different usage needs. Apart from the new launches the aggressive marketing campaign, buyback offers and other promotional activities pushed the sales further. It was the only handset vendor in India during FY 2013-14 with the maximum spend on its advertising beating players such as Apple, Sony and Nokia.
As far as distribution is concerned, it expanded its footprints in India to 2,000 exclusive brand stores under the franchise model of which 1,100 are smartphone cafe format. Samsung also started focusing on the small towns with population of less than a lakh to increase its sales in rural India where majority of the market is shifting from feature phones to smartphones. The company plans to open 3,000 to 4,000 exclusive outlets across rural Indian towns. Apart from offline distribution channel, it has strong presence in the online space too in partnership with almost all the leading e-commerce portals like Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Homeshop18, etc., Going forward it might launch some of its models as an exclusive online partnership with a particular e-commerce portal, a trend which is catching up fast post the success of Motorola in India. In the tablet category, Samsung is catering to both consumer and the enterprise segment through the traditional distribution route with specific focus on verticals like education and BFSI and has a dedicated team looking after enterprise tablet sales.
In FY 2013-14, the company also started domestic manufacturing of tablets and scaled up the production capacity of its smartphone manufacturing unit in Noida. Also, it entered in the arena of smart-wearables, launching its first ever smart watch.
Samsung has struck the rights chords at the right time in the past one year and tasted success. However, going forward the company will face stiff competition from new entrants like Gionee and Xiaomi apart from tier-one brands such as Motorola and Nokia, which are breaching the lower price points for their smartphones. Now, Samsung will have to focus on reducing the time-to-market of new models and bringing in innovation at lower price points.