Companies like Micromax-Lava are making a comeback in the market with cheap smartphones, their market share was reduced to less than 1% in 2020.
After virtually disappearing from the market in the last few years, Indian-origin mobile phone manufacturers like Micromax, Lava International and Karbonn Mobiles are back. In November, Micromax made a comeback in the segment with the new brand IN Mobiles, while Lava has re-entered the market by launching a customized smartphone range ‘MyZ’. Karbonn Mobiles is also planning to introduce two smartphones by March.
Apart from the Made in India nameplate, the comeback strategy of these brands is similar to that of Chinese smartphone makers, who launched smartphones with heavy specifications to capture the Indian market. Lava’s MyZ series is priced at Rs 6,999-10,500, while Micromax is offering the IN Note 1 for Rs 10,999 and the IN 1b for Rs 6,999. Karbonn Mobiles is also planning to launch its smartphone in the price segment of Rs 5,000-10,000.
Karbonn Mobiles will launch 8 smartphones this year
Karbonn Mobiles MD, Pradeep Jain said, “Initially, we are planning to focus on the price band of Rs 5,000-7,000, as there is not much competition in this segment, and then we will gradually move towards the Rs 10,000 segment.” The company plans to target Tier II and III cities for these phones and plans to tap its network of 45,000 retail touchpoints as well as the e-commerce marketplace to sell it. To attract customers, the company will bring features like 2GB RAM and 32GB storage with a display larger than 6-inch for less than Rs 7,000. Overall, the company is planning to launch eight smartphones this year.
Micromax will target online sales and youth
Micromax is eyeing an online-first strategy to target youth and retail sales for its new range of smartphones. The company may initially launch its products online on Flipkart and the company’s e-commerce platform Micromax.com. It will then be sold offline, where it has about 10,000 outlets. The company is also expanding its manufacturing capabilities. The company says – ‘We have three state-of-the-art manufacturing plants in India at Hyderabad, Bhiwani and Rudrapur, where over 20 million phones can be made annually.’
Focus on cheap smartphone segment
These companies will make their way into the low-cost segment. The companies will also target such customers, who are looking to upgrade from feature phones to smartphones. Although these companies were working in the feature phone segment, they pulled out of the smartphone market after Chinese brands arrived in India.
Micromax-Lava’s share was reduced to less than 1% in 2020
Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo entered the Indian market in the middle of the last decade with feature-loaded smartphones and higher production capacity. Indian companies did not understand the utility of 4G back then, which made the way for Chinese companies easier. According to a report, Micromax and Lava’s smartphone market share in 2015 was 16% and 6% respectively, which declined to below 1% in 2020.
With the growing anti-China sentiment in the country, the government turned to a self-sufficient India campaign. Now the government’s performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for mobile manufacturing has helped these companies come back to the segment.
Indian brands will have to focus on the online marketplace – Experts
Navkendra Singh (Research Director, IDBI India) stated that – although these brands have tried to make a good comeback, their success depends on matching with Chinese smartphone players for price, multi-channel approach and marketing initiatives. He said a group of Indian users are eager to buy domestic brands. Singh says that affordability is very important in the Indian market, in such a situation, the plans of these companies to enter the market below Rs 10,000 can prove very effective. However, it is not easy for them to compete with Chinese brands, which occupy about three-quarters of the smartphone market in the country. As some Indian brands already have a presence in the offline market due to their feature phones, Praveer Singh, senior analyst, says that now Indian companies need to partner with the online marketplace.
