Samsung in a move, seeking to regain grounds lost to Xiaomi and other Chinese Rivals and to win back the world’s second-biggest but fastest-growing mobile phone market, has been planning to launch a new series of budget smartphones in India before their global release.
As per available data of three quarters of 2018, Samsung’s share of shipments in Indian market has lagged that of Xiaomi’s in two out of the three quarters in 2018, according to technology researcher Counterpoint.
Samsung is planning to sell the three new M-series phones only through its online store and Amazon India that will also help the company to boost its online sales by twofold, Asim Warsi the head of Samsung’s Indian mobile business told Reuters.
The prices of all three phones are below 20,000 rupees ($283) while the cheapest will be priced even below 10,000 rupees ($141.80). The mobile phones will be carrying heavy batteries and quick charging features.
The M series is exactly and exclusively built with an aim to capture millennial consumers of India, who makes one-third of Indian population of 1.3 billion and half of the country’s online shoppers, said Warsi. He also added that the new M series will be launched globally ahead of its launch in India at the end of January.
Warsi without disclosing the details added that to the company’s overall mobile phone revenue, online sales makes a double-digit percentage of its.
In 12 months from April 2017 to March-2018, Samsung tapped 373.5 billion rupees ($5.3 billion) selling mobile phones in India, according to regulatory filings sourced by paper.vc, a business intelligence platform.
As the Western markets have becoming saturated, India is still full of opportunities for the phone makers to grow their sales, as it is home to more than one billion wireless subscribers with 350 million users still not switched to a smartphone.
