Samsung India expects 2019 to be the best year so far for the company, driven by the launch of new products and services coupled with rising number of users upgrading to better devices.
The company, which is locked in an intense battle with brands like Xiaomi and Oppo, is also gearing up to launch a new online-only smartphone series — the M series — to cash in on the segment that contributes about 35% to the smartphone sales in the country.
“We are looking at a 2019 as evermore exciting than anything in the past. The market, the opportunity, the growth is all beckoning in 2019. I think, this year is going to be the best we have seen so far. If the market is a healthy double digit growth, for sure we will have very strong double digit growth,” Asim Warsi, senior vice president, mobile business, Samsung India told The Hindu.
As per the company’s filling with the RoC, it saw a sales growth of 9% in its mobile business in India in FY 2018, to touch ₹37,349 crore.
Customised services
“We are geared up for 2019. You will see many more exciting tech, capabilities, app and services... customised services for Samsung device users,” Mr. Warsi said. He, however, did not elaborate.
On the launch of the new series, he said that the online retail is a growth segment and the new series has been built with Indian millennials in mind.
“Online is an important channel and we have been committed to it since it’s inception. We have launched multiple number of devices online… M series is a succession in that path... What we will be seeing most likely is that this will help us more that double our online business next year over the previous year,” he said.
To start with, the series would comprise three device priced in the sub-₹10,000 and ₹10,000-₹20,000 segment in “the centre of where the Indian market is.” The phones will be sold on Amazon India as well as Samsung’s website. “It’s not just that millennials are 1/3rd of the population, we see through data and research that more than half of the shoppers in e-commerce in India are millennials. By the virtue of that, these devices will be sold in the online channel where the millennial consumers are buying.”
“When we look at our customers, it’s the millennials who are the alpha users of tech, the way they use not just the camera but various over-the-top apps that use the camera hardware and software capabilities…They are most demanding on tech and performance. They also become important figure in their circle as to what the next and best tech is to buy,” Mr. Warsi said.
Talking about the outlook for the industry in 2019, Mr. Warsi said, “Market in the last couple of years.. and we carry that trajectory into 2019...is moving up and up. There is upgrade happening. The average price band, the average feature stack, the average consumption is moving up. So, you can expect technology, average selling prices (ASPs) to grow on the back of that…and it’s not just the value and the ASPs and the tech, the number of users is also growing. So, if you factor in the two things, India continues to be very exciting, double digit growth opportunities.”
Samsung expects average selling prices of mobile phones to grow from about ₹11,000 in 2018 to about ₹12,000 in the current year.
“In terms of consumption, camera which has been such a huge evocative use case for consumers, we see further evolution and popularising of videos, particularly short video formats not just consumption but shooting and sharing. Video-based apps will be very popular in the time to come,” he said.