Samsung announced that the smart phone major will not cut
its phone prices during the upcoming festival season.
Usually, festival seasons in India experience substantial
price revision on mobile phones. Vendors also offer phones with freebies.
The development is significant as Research In Motion
(RIM) is likely to bring down the price of PlayBook tablet
in India shortly. The smartphone major has already started slashing the price
of its touch screen tablet in the US and Canada.
The Indian mobile market is already experiencing a major
price war in the tablet space.
We will not decrease the price in the wake of the
weakening of rupee and rising input costs,” said Ranjit Yadav, country head for
Samsung’s Mobile and IT business.
The rupee, in the past one month, has dived from 45 level
to near 50 levels against the US currency on continued FII outflows and strong
dollar overseas. Recently, consumer durables divisions of LG and Samsung
increased prices of their products by up to 3 percent.
Samsung will continue with its multi-platform strategy in
smartphones as the company launches phones across android, windows phone and
its own Bada operating system.
Even though we are investing in Bada operating system,
Samsung will not restrict itself to any one particular platform. We want to
give choice to customers and thus will continue to offer phones on android and
windows phone operating systems,” Yadav added.
The Korean major will launch at least 3-4 new phones monthly. India is a
fast-growing mobile market and we will continue to strengthen our portfolio
across price points.
Samsung is looking at achieving 40 percent market share
in the Indian mobile market in fiscal 2011-12.
According to IDC, Nokia is leading the mobile phone
market and the smartphone segment in Q2 2011, with 25 percent and 45.8 percent
shares, respectively.
Samsung is second to Nokia with shares of 15 percent and
21 percent in the mobile phone market and the smartphone segment, respectively.
Its Galaxy series of handsets are assisting the company to enhance market
share.
A noteworthy development in the second quarter of 2011
was that smartphones with average sales values of INR 18,000 and above
witnessed a significant growth of 31 percent over the preceding quarter and a
whopping 96 percent growth over the year-ago quarter, Q2 CY2010,” said G
Rajeev, lead analyst, Mobile Devices, IDC.
Samsung is also gearing up to launch its 4G devices in
India. We already launched 4G devices in America. We are capable of
introducing 4G devices in line with Indian operators’ 4G launches,” Yadav
added.
By Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
