by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
New Delhi: Billed as the “best Android phones you can buy,” Google Pixel devices have miserably failed to impress Indian users and the reason is pretty obvious: Poor go-to-marketing strategy.
Look at Google Pixel numbers. In the second quarter of 2019, it had less than 0.1 market share in the Indian premium smartphone segment — dominated by Samsung, Apple and the likes of OnePlus, according to Counterpoint Research.
Google Pixel also has a minuscule global market share despite arriving on the scene in 2016.
Launched with much fanfare, the first edition of Pixel and Pixel XL were announced during a press event on October 4, 2016, succeeding the Nexus line of smartphones.
Pixels suffered from several issues after the release, including excessive optical lens flare in pictures captured through rear camera, connectivity issues with some mobile data bands, unstable Bluetooth connections, unexpected battery shutdowns, and failing microphones.
Google acknowledged those issues and released fixes for most of them but to no avail.
In the second quarter globally, taking the “budget phone” route appeared to have worked a bit for Google as the overall Pixel unit sales grew more than twice year-on-year (YoY), the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai told investors.
The Google CEO attributed the success of the Pixel line-up — including the cheapest Pixel 3a — to an expanded distribution network.
The mid-tier Pixel 3a and 3aXL, which were launched at Rs 39,999 and Rs 44,999 respectively in India, were seen as Google’s attempt to revive dwindling sales numbers.
Despite this, the expected Pixel growth remains a distant dream for Google in India.
Is Google Pixel going the Microsoft’s Windows phones way which have been discontinued, and support for Windows 10 Mobile would end on current Windows phones on December 10, leaving the users to either switch to Apple iOS or Android devices?
According to Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CyberMedia Research (CMR), the smartphone camera experience is something that consumers rank high, and care about enough to upgrade to a new smartphone.
“This is where Google Pixel with its best-in-class camera capabilities has an advantage. Where the Pixel has faltered is in getting its pricing and go-to-marketing strategy right,” Ram told IANS.
For adequately communicating the camera capabilities of the Pixel to the consumers, Google’s marketing has left much to be desired.
“When compared to other brands operating in the premium segment, including the likes of Apple, Samsung or a OnePlus, the Google Pixel’s brand salience lags behind,” Ram explained.
Google is set to refresh its Pixel series with two new offerings — Pixel 4 and 4 XL — next month.
“For the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL to succeed in a price-conscious market like India, it would need to be top notch in its specs, and stand heads and shoulders above other powerful Android smartphone brands,” said Ram.
According to Counterpoint, the Internet giant’s channel strategy stunted the growth of Pixel 3 and Pixel 3XL.
“While one could always debate about the Pixel 3 price upgrade as compared to its Pixel 2 series ($150 more) vis-a-vis spec upgrade, it was the channel strategy which constrained the growth of Pixel 3,” Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, had told IANS earlier.
The tech giant has also admitted that it sold fewer Pixel phones owing to industry-wide pressure on high-end smartphones.
“Google absolutely needs to nail and distill the Pixel value proposition for consumers. The company should price its new Pixel phones more aggressively, and should attract consumers to switch over with new, attractive, and viable trade-in schemes,” suggested Ram.
If this is not done well within time, the festive season will only bring bad news and the survival of Pixel series in India will be at stake.
IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Sales, SMEs, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : While the top five smartphone brands currently enjoy a market share exceeding 75 per cent in India, whatever is left is now being shared by over 88 smartphone brands — leaving a mere 0.3 per cent market share for each player.
Players like Panasonic and Videocon are among those 88 smartphone brands sharing the revenue of nearly Rs 43,560 crore — or Rs 475 crore revenue per brand (on average).
On the other hand, Samsung alone posted sales of over Rs 37,000 crore for its mobile phone business in India in the financial year 2018, followed by arch rival Xiaomi at nearly Rs 23,000 crore.
Oppo Mobiles registered nearly Rs 12,000 crore in revenue while Vivo crossed Rs 11,000 crore in the FY 2018.
The big question is: How many of these 88 brands will be able to survive the hyper-competitive and highly price-conscious Indian market?
“As a result of the increased consolidation among the top five smartphone brands, the available potential sphere of play for other smartphone players has significantly decreased,” said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG) at the market research firm CyberMedia Research (CMR).
Over the past two years, feature phone to smartphones upgrade has not picked up as anticipated.
“This was primarily due to the spike in refurbished phones/second hand phone market, along with the rapid uptake of 4G feature phones. Coupled with this, the lack of smartphone offerings providing optimal experience under sub-Rs 6,000, is also affecting the upgrades,” Ram told IANS.
Amid massive investment in retail stores, hiring more staff and increasing ad spends as users are spoilt for choices, the pinch would soon affect many of those 88 vendors sooner than later, and most will either shut shops or enter newer businesses.
However, for Chinese brands with deep pockets and a stagnating market back home, India would continue to remain a attractive bet.
“They can afford to bleed, and any profit would be welcome. We believe they would continue to fight in the market,” said Swati Kalia, an analyst at IIG, CMR.
The smartphone market in India grew 14.5 per cent in 2018 with the highest-ever shipments of 142.3 million units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
Xiaomi with 28.9 market share shipped 41.1 million units while Samsung with 22.4 per cent market share shipped 31.9 million in FY 2018.
Vivo shipped 14.2 million units with 10 per cent market share while OPPO shipped 10.2 million units and captured 7.2 per cent market share.
In such a scenario, the road ahead only gets tougher for the rest of the players.
“For large consumer-durable conglomerates, including the likes of Panasonic and Videocon, it makes more sense to look at broader synergies available from new blue sky opportunities such as Internet of Things (IoT) and the connected home,” noted Amit Sharma, another Analyst at IIG, CMR.
(Nishant Arora can be reached at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, News, Sales, SMEs
New Delhi : The overall global smartphone market declined for the first time in 2018, registering 4 per cent drop from 1,558.8 million unit shipments in 2017 to 1,498.3 million units 2018, Counterpoint Research said on Thursday.
The fourth quarter smartphone shipments for 2018 recorded a decline of 7 per cent, marking it the fifth consecutive quarter of smartphone decline.
Samsung had 19 per cent share, followed by Apple and Huawei, both at 14 per cent, globally. Xiaomi with 8 per cent market share was fourth.
“The decline in smartphone shipments can be attributed to lengthening replacement cycles in developed markets like US, China and Western Europe,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research.
Smartphone original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) tried to push sales by adding features such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), multiple camera assemblies, full-screen displays and in-screen fingerprint scanners, etc.
“But consumers held on to their devices longer due to the absence of ground-breaking innovations and higher prices of devices being offered by the OEMs,” Pathak added.
Huawei, OPPO and Vivo continue to dominate with strong performances in China, India, Asia and parts of Europe.
Samsung and Apple saw tough times as demand for their flagship phones waned due to competition from affordable yet premium phones from Chinese brands such as Huawei and OnePlus, the report said.
“The collective smartphone shipment growth of emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia and others was not enough to offset the decline in China, which was responsible for almost one-third of global smartphone shipments in 2018,” said Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava.
Xiaomi reached a record fourth position for the full year after two years of setbacks thanks to immense growth in India.
It has surpassed OPPO globally to take back the fourth position.
“BBK Group (which owns OPPO, Realme, Vivo and OnePlus brands) is collectively the world’s third largest manufacturer, even bigger than Huawei in terms of volume,” said the report.
Huawei continued to have its sights on Apple and should surpass Apple as the second largest brand globally in 2019 if it does not face any sanctions from the US the way ZTE was cut-off from American suppliers, noted the report.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Sales, SMEs, Technology
By Gokul Bhagabati,
New Delhi : In a list of top smartphone players in the Indian market for the third quarter of 2018, Micromax made a surprise entry after a long hiatus, once again bringing back the domestic handset player into the spotlight.
With a nine per cent share in the overall shipments of smartphones in India, Micromax surpassed OPPO to occupy the fourth position in the list after Xiaomi (27 per cent), Samsung (23 per cent) and Vivo (10 per cent), according to Counterpoint Research.
While much of that lead is attributed to a contract with the Chhattisgarh government for the supply of five million smartphones, Micromax seems to be gearing up to give its Chinese rivals some competition, especially in the sub-Rs 10,000 market.
The launch of its first “notch” series of smartphones — the Infinity N11 and Infinity N12 — for Rs 8,999 and Rs 9,999, respectively in December can be seen as a step in that direction.
And the Infinity N12 that we used for some time does surprise with a good front-shooter, big display and a decent battery.
Let’s find out how it works.
Powered by the Mediatek Helio P22 processor, the Infinity N12 is 3GB phone with 32GB internal storage. It supports dual SIM and also has a dedicated microSD slot that allows one to extend the memory up to 128GB.
In terms of design, it offers consumers a decent look within a budget. While the dual rear camera set-up and the LED flash are vertically aligned in one corner, the fingerprint sensor is centrally located.
From the front, the power button stands alone on the right sidebar, while the volume buttons are placed on the left. The SIM tray is placed at the top of the device.
The rounded corners of the phone help provide an easy grip and the thin bezels on the sides occupy very little space of the screen, enhancing the video viewing experience. The bottom chin is, however, big.
The 6.19-inch display comes with HD+ resolution and 18.9:9 aspect ratio. The phone runs Android 8.1 Oreo OS and houses a 4,000 mAh battery, which is good enough to last a day after moderate level of usage.
The large battery, however, is not the only highlight of the phone. The 16MP front camera that Micromax offers at sub-Rs 10,000 captured much better pictures than what we could with some costlier devices. The front camera picked up the details well, even of the background.
We found the fingerprint sensor working very fast. In terms of user interface and overall performance, our experience was smooth.
What did not work?
As much as we liked the front shooter, the 13MP+5MP rear camera was equally disappointing. The camera captured photos well only in sufficient daylight. In most other conditions, they came out very grainy.
While the sound quality was also not to our satisfaction, we also found the face unlock feature full of glitches.
And, even as the phone houses a big battery, it does not offer any fast-charging capability as it supports USB 2.0.
The phone also comes with a lot of pre-loaded apps which users may find useless.
Conclusion: Compared to many of its popular competitors like the Xiaomi Redmi 6 and Honor 7A, Micromax Infinity N12 offers better features in several segments.
With a good selfie camera, ample battery and a big display, the phone has the potential to strike the right chord with the youth of the country.
(Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Sales, SMEs, Technology
New Delhi : Riding on the success of the P20, Mate 20 and Nova series, Huawei on Wednesday said its smartphone shipments for 2018 exceeded 200 million units, a new all-time high for the Chinese phone maker.
Huawei surpassed Apple to become the world’s second-largest smartphone seller in the world first in the second quarter of this year and then again in the third quarter with a global market share of 14.6 per cent, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC).
In the past eight years, Huawei’s smartphone shipments have increased from three million units in 2010 to 200 million units in 2018, reflecting approximately a sixty-six-fold growth, the company said in a statement.
At present, more than 500 million consumers in more than 170 countries around the world are using Huawei smartphones, it added.
Compared to 2017, Huawei sold around 50 million more smartphones this year.
“Looking to the future, Huawei’s consumer business will focus on the core concept of ‘consumer-centric’, and will dare to keep innovating, and make every effort to become a pioneer and leader in the next wave of the smartphone revolution,” Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said in a statement.
Since its release in March, global shipments for Huawei P20 series have exceeded 16 million units, with female users accounting for nearly half of that number.
Within two months of the release of the Huawei Mate 20 series, it had already shipped over five million units, the statement said, ading that as of the end of 2018, the nova series has sold over 65 million units, making it the leader of Huawei’s mid-range devices.
—IANS
