Tech giant Apple opened its first two stores in Mumbai and Delhi this week. While the over-enthusiastic crowd tells the story of dedicated Apple customers, making a store opening event a huge success, the fact remains that Indians show less than half the enthusiasm for local brands, especially when it comes to smartphones .
The talks about the opening of both these stores had started on social media about a week back. Finally, when the Apple team came to India, a crowd gathered in front of the store, flashing their iPhones while taking selfies with CEO Tim Cook. One person even brought his old Macintosh model to the opening ceremony.
Most of us have heard that India is a brand-conscious country, and it is not just limited to luxury clothing. Apple products, even iPhones, are very expensive. But still the company sold 2 million iPhones in India in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Some believe that a section of buyers are completely in love with the brand and hence buy the iPhone, while others who might have bought it just to show off as they consider the iPhone to be a status symbol.
But there are several reasons that attract a particular class of buyers. This includes better resale value, refined product design, security and privacy – which are Apple’s main trump cards. It is also said that iPhones have a range of processors which clearly provide better and smoother performance than Android phones.
Some users also buy iPhone because it lasts longer. Also worth noting are the huge software updates every year. For example, the iPhone 6s debuted with iOS 9 in 2015 and will receive software updates until 2021 with iOS 15. However, with iOS 16 Apple decided to end software support for the model.
Also, the reason why people buy such expensive phones can be a result of the availability of easy EMI options. A few years ago it was difficult for Indians to buy a phone under Rs 70,000. But now they can easily look through EMI options on e-commerce sites and choose whichever tenure suits them.
However, still iPhone has not been able to beat the popularity of Android in India. Market research showed that the top smartphone brand in India in the fourth quarter of 2022 was Korean giant Samsung, followed by China’s Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo and Realme. Among all these brands, after nearly five years, Xiaomi lost its lead in Q4 and slipped to the third spot with 5.5 million unit shipments.
So, there is a clear division. While the majority belong to Android users in India who hold one of these top market dominance right now, there is another section of buyers with iPhones and other brands.
But it proves that Indians are less interested in local smartphone brands like Micromax, which overtook Samsung a few years ago but now has less than 1% market share, and Lava, which recently Has refocused its efforts on the smartphone segment. Crowded market. There are also other Indian brands like Karbonn, Xolo and Intex.
Some people are not interested in these Indian brands due to trust issues. People are concerned about these companies not spending enough on R&D, lack of facilities, quality issues and not producing competitive enough equipment. The focus is on making an affordable phone, while Indian buyers are willing to pay a lot for a quality smartphone.
But now it is expected that Indian brands can make a comeback with the help of the Production Linked Incentive Scheme. Lava and Bhagwati (Micromax) are among the domestic companies that received approval to manufacture mobile phones under the scheme, while the latter became the first company to receive disbursements under the PLI scheme for IT hardware earlier this year. Went.
Hence, these companies are likely to increase their manufacturing activity significantly and then aggressive pricing as well as competing smartphones are expected to make them a better percentage of the market share.
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