Mobile Phones
Samsung emulates Chinese brands to stay on top in India
Features developed in India, youth-centric marketing, more lower-priced devices and a mix of online and offline retail have helped the South Korean tech giant regain the top spot.
Sometimes keeping ahead of the game means learning some tricks from rivals – a strategy Samsung hasn’t been too proud to adopt in India, where Xiaomi and other Chinese brands have made hefty inroads.
Pages pulled from their playbooks include becoming savvier with online marketing to millennials as Samsung seeks to reinvent itself as a younger brand, as well as providing sales staff for smaller stores and even finding a new love for cricket with a sponsorship deal.
Combined with a slew of new models – many aimed at undermining Chinese dominance of the $150 to $300 phone segment – the new tactics are paying off with the South Korean tech giant reclaiming the top spot in the second quarter.
“Samsung was living in a sort of denial of the threat that Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo posed but now they’ve come out of the ostrich hole,” said Rushabh Doshi, research manager at industry tracker Canalys.
Its Galaxy J6 launched in May and the J8 sold from July have been doing especially well, each selling 50,000 a day, says Samsung. In an appeal to millennials, the phones have a new “chat over video” feature which allows users to view videos without interruption even as they chat by text due to a transparent keyboard.
To be sure, Samsung has long dominated the premium end of the smartphone market in India and features like “chat over video”, designed at its Indian R&D centre, underscore its tech prowess. It has also built up a wide retail network in the country. But Samsung, which logged slower profit growth in April-June, knows it has to pull out the stops in India if it wants to avoid harsh lessons meted out in China.
Five years ago, it had 20 per cent of the Chinese market, only to see that fall to less than 1 per cent this year, outgunned by Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, particularly on pricing. India is too big a prize to lose – the world’s no. 2 smartphone market with about 400 million users and worth an estimated $20 billion annually.
It’s also the world’s fastest-growing major mobile phone market, expanding about 20 per cent last quarter from a year earlier. For Samsung, India is its biggest market outside the United States and one where it has invested heavily, opening the world’s biggest smartphone factory in Noida last month.
But Chinese brands now account for every one in two phones sold in India, with Xiaomi making the greatest strides. Since 2014, the Mi brand steadily gained share to knock Samsung from the top spot last December.
Although Samsung regained the title last quarter, it was only by a hair’s breadth – 29 per cent market share to Xiaomi’s 28 per cent, according to research firm Counterpoint. Samsung started selling three new phones in the quarter while Xiaomi had one product release.
A younger, cooler Samsung
To promote its Rs 14,500 Galaxy On6 launched last month, Samsung has eschewed traditional TV advertising. Instead it embarked on one of its most aggressive online campaigns, enlisting actor Tiger Shroff and uploading videos and photos to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Another new tactic has been Samsung’s sponsorship of the Mumbai Indians IPL cricket team. Cricket has worked well for rival Vivo, which has become a strong player in India on the back of its sponsorship of the Indian Premier League.
Company sources said Samsung has increased spending on marketing. With its deep pockets, it can afford to invest heavily – a strategy that competitors may struggle to match longer term.
In brick-and-mortar stores too, Samsung has had to step up to match its Chinese rivals. Previously it only paid for a Samsung sales specialist for stores with monthly sales of more than Rs 10 lakh, but it has halved that threshold following similar actions by Oppo and Vivo, retail sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The sources also said Samsung was developing financing products independent of current tie-ups with financial firms – a move which could help it offer customers a smoother sales process and even lift profit margins. But its rivals aren’t standing still, moving into the premium segment.
Huawei launched its flagship P20 Pro, which has three cameras, in India for Rs 65,000 in direct competition to Samsung’s S9. Vivo this month started selling the NEX, which has a camera that pops out, for Rs 44,990.
Source: Reuters
NEW DELHI: Global technology brand OnePlus on Friday announced its schedule of pop-ups across seven cities in India, which will take place on February 11, where attendees will be the first to get their hands on the newly launched products OnePlus 11 5G and the OnePlus Buds Pro 2, starting at 11 a.m.
At the OnePlus pop-ups, the first 11 people to buy the all-new OnePlus 11 5G will receive exclusive OnePlus 11 goodies, such as OnePlus products and merchandise.
In the seven major cities, the pop-ups will take place at OnePlus Experience Store, Phoenix Palladium, Mumbai; OnePlus Boulevard, Brigade Road, Bengaluru; Select Citywalk Mall, Saket, New Delhi; OnePlus Experience Store, JM Road, Pune; OnePlus Nizam Palace, Himayat Nagar, Hyderabad; OnePlus Experience Store, Phoenix Market City, Chennai; and OnePlus Experience Store, CG Road, Ahmedabad.
At the Cloud 11 launch event, OnePlus announced an array of its products — 11 5G, 11R 5G, Bus Pro 2, TV Q2 Pro, Pad, and 81 Pro keyboard.
The new line-up of products is distinguished by purposeful designs, industry-leading technology, and advanced interconnectivity, which is set to take the brand’s fast and smooth experience to all new heights.
The OnePlus 11 5G was launched at a starting price of Rs 56,999 which comes in two colourways — Titan Black and Eternal Green.
It features a 6.7-inch display that comes with a refresh rate of 120 Hz.
The smartphone comes equipped with the 3rd Generation Hasselblad Camera for Mobile with a “three-main-sensor” triple-camera system — 50MP+32MP+48MP.
The smartphone also comes powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset with up to 16GB of RAM.
OnePlus has also designed the ideal companion to the OnePlus 11 5G — the OnePlus Buds Pro 2, which promises to deliver a full-bodied, stereo-quality audio experience with crystal clarity.
The Buds Pro 2 is the second generation of its flagship earbuds, which is priced at Rs 11,999.
Apart from the first 11 buyers, other buyers will get an instant discount of Rs 1,000 on the OnePlus 11 5G, on purchase through ICICI Bank Credit Cards and EMI transactions, and up to 12 months No-Cost EMI on purchase using major credit cards.
Source: IANS
NEW DELHI: Apple Inc has rolled out a beta programme to enable 5G on Apple devices as the upgrade lets users try out pre-release software.
This software upgrade enables 5G access on Apple devices, as and when service providers Jio, Airtel and Vodafone enable 5G network access, sources said.
Apple Users have to enrol for the Beta Programme on the website, install a profile and download the software.
Jio users using iPhone 12 and above, in cities where JioTrue5G has been rolled out, will be invited to the Jio Welcome Offer. Jio Welcome Offer provides unlimited 5G data at up to 1 Gbps speed to users at no additional cost. However, there is a condition that prepaid users must be on active Rs 239 and above plan. All Postpaid users are eligible for this trial.
Airtel is not providing any special 5G offer like Jio to their users. In the cities/areas in which the Airtel 5G network has been launched, users can trial 5G services as a part of their existing plan, once they have updated the latest Apple Beta software.
While an email sent to Apple did not solicit an immediate response, the firm had last month stated: “We are working with our carrier partners in India to bring the best 5G experience to iPhone users as soon as network validation and testing for quality and performance is completed. 5G will be enabled via a software update and will start rolling out to iPhone users in December”.
Airtel and Jio customers on iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 12 and iPhone SE (3rd generation) models can experience 5G as part of Apple’s iOS 16 Beta Software Program. The Apple Beta Software Program is open to anyone with a valid Apple ID who accepts the Apple Beta Software Program Agreement during the sign-up process.
If a user has an iCloud account, that is an Apple ID, it is recommended they use that. If they do not have an iCloud account or any other Apple ID, they can create one.
Customers who want to try the beta software should back up their iPhones before installing the beta software. It is recommended to install the beta software only on non-production devices that are not business-critical. Users can also provide feedback to Apple on quality and usability, which helps Apple identify issues, fix them, and make Apple software even better.
The iOS beta comes with the built-in Feedback Assistant app, which can be opened from the Home screen on the iPhone or iPad or from the Dock on the Mac.
Source: Press Trust of India
NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel, India’s premier digital communications solutions provider, today announced multiple new products in its cloud portfolio ahead of the 5G service launch. The new cloud offerings will fall under Edge Cloud Portfolio and will include Edge CDN. Airtel will utilise Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud solution for deployment.
Airtel Cloud’s Edge content delivery network (CDN) accelerates web and video content delivery by using its edge network to bring content as close to users as possible. This reduces latency, costs and load on servers making it easier for enterprises to focus on app performance. This service is especially useful in OTT, Ed-Tech, Gaming and Healthcare sectors.
Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN service is network optimised as it uses 120 edge locations, network strength and share of mobility handset to bring better customer experience to customers. Airtel is working with two of the largest OTT companies in India and others on this platform.
Speaking about Airtel Cloud’s Edge Portfolio, Mr Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business Said, said, “With 5G around the corner, businesses will leverage the low latency, high bandwidth and high device density of the 5G spectrum to solve critical problems using edge computing. Airtel has three key strengths to offer a differentiated set of cloud offerings – we have 12 large data centres and 120+ edge locations. We also have a network with comprehensive coverage across the country and to most locations across the globe. Finally, our GTM strength has direct relationships to all businesses in India small, medium or large.”
Speaking about the partnership, Mr. Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt, said “Airtel is a tremendously exciting addition to our global ecosystem of service providers, and we are delighted to power a unique content delivery service offering in India. Our edge architecture provides a new economic model for streaming delivery, in which Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN plays a central role in the end-to-end value chain. This announcement underscores the momentum we are gathering as we realize our ambition to build the world’s highest preforming edge delivery network.”
Airtel has been spearheading 5G throughout India. It recently became the first company to test a captive private network at the Bosch facility in Bengaluru. Airtel is also rolling out its Edge compute service to customers. This will bring 5G private network and edge computing in a single box with a view to target factories, warehouse and ports, airports who will need low latency and high bandwidth network, IOT devices to collect and computing prowess to process the data.
Airtel also announced that as we move ahead, there will be many targeted cloud solutions coming in for specific industry needs like Banking, 5G Edge, Developer and hybrid cloud requirements on an immediate basis.
