CHENNAI: It's not just consumer durables that will be looking for robust sales this festive season. Smartphones, a category that has more than doubled since the last festive season, is betting big on this year's.
The past week saw two high profile launches — Nokia's N8 and BlackBerry Torch, along with Videocon's debut in Android, Zeus. "This festive season, we're looking at robust sales from smartphones in various categories. We're particularly optimistic about the soon-to-be launched C7, the E5 and of course, the N8. The youth has taken to the C3 in a big way," says T S Sridhar, regional general manager, Nokia (south).
The recently launched HTC Android phones, particularly the Wildfire, is another favourite this year, not just globally, but in India too. A Gartner report states that HTC made its debut in the top 10 worldwide ranking, holding the number eight position with 139.1% growth year-on-year.
"This reflects the popularity of its Android portfolio but also a more aggressive branding strategy compared to the same period in 2009," states the report.
Over the past year, the smartphone market has gone from being a premium product to a highly segmented space. "You can now classify smartphones in four price ranges — sub Rs 6,000 (around 13 models), Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 (around 13 models), Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 (about 32 models) and over Rs 20,000 (roughly 28 models)," says Sujay Misra, MD of AZ Research Partners.
"This market has nearly tripled in size when compared to last year." In stores, the demand is on the rise, be it small ones or consumer durables chains. "Smartphone customers do a lot of research and are already well informed about the different models. And they're not happy to see phones in a box. They want to see everything live," says a salesperson at a mobile phone chain store.
Nokia Prority dealers now have live displays for their latest N8, along with some other models. "This year, we are doubling our stock and display of smartphones in our stores as we have seen 100% growth in sales," says B K Shankar, president (operations) of Viveks, a chain of consumer durables stores in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore.
"The average customer for a smartphone is anywhere between 25 years to 45 years and this year, we're expecting to see younger customers for this category."
Misra cites the latest Vodafone BlackBerry advertisement as a reflection of how the demographic of a smartphone has gone from being a 35 years-plus executive phone to one for "virtually everybody."
"With the introduction of 3G, the smartphone market is all set to increase over the next year," says Sridhar. This festive season, however, analysts say Android phones will be at an advantage. "While Nokia may be the leader, their software, Symbian, has not found favour among the youth, while BlackBerry's future is shaky because of its controversy.
As for iPhones, they are still too expensive to affect numbers. But Android phones have a great 'cool quotient', particularly among the youth, and have got their pricing right. So, phones in this category will lead the race," says a senior official of a telecom company.