Smartphone Player's Using Online Portal Based Sell is Going to Lose Market Share in Coming Months in India

Indian Smartphone sell through mechanism is again taking a U turn towards the retail segment. It is a known fact about Indian consumer that they love to get attracted towards the discount and never loses that opportunity. The sudden growth in online segment fueled by investor money and subsequent rush by those online players to attract userbase landed many International as well as domestic Smartphone companies to mint out the sell. The Online industry also understood it well that Mobile Smartphone and accessories is one of the area which will bring user onto their portal and it happened.

The international players more specifically tapped Online companies to enter into Indian market as well as to grab the market share without losing anything. On a contrary, Online companies lost millions of $ to gain as well as retain the userbase.

The slide in online companies funding forced them to reduce the discounting which is now reflecting in their market share going down to 31% from 37 % as per 91mobile.com  published report. Companies like One plus, LeEco, Cool pad, lenovo, In Focus and host of other companies heavily relies on Online companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Snap Deal as well as smaller player for the major chunk of their sale through exclusive launch of their Smartphone through mentioned E-Commerce  portal. The reduction is discounting will neutralize the E-Commerce portal based pricingwith retail pricing.

It is evident that in coming months, Smartphone player's relying heavily on E-Commerce portal will see drastic fall in their sell and it may lead to recalibration of market leaders to laggards

Is Indian Mobile Industry Undergoing Bubble Mode - Threat for International Brand

The falling economy in China took a major toll on Device ODM and OEM market place. The Mobility device sales including Smartphone are slowing down. The manufacturing capacity is higher than the market demand which also include the export market. The pressure on the financial forced many ODM to look towards the international market as OEM to keep running their assembly lines. Flushed with cash reserve many big names of China Smartphone segment started knocking Indian market. The extraordinary boom in e-commerce market segment of India and the players intention to grab the userbase were taken as opportunity by Chinese players to enter Indian market. One plus, Xiaomi, Meizu, Qiku, Coolpad, LeEco, Phicomm,Oppo, Vivo all entered into Indian marketplace through Online channel while collaborating with local Device servicing companies. The Discount offered by e-Commerce portal gave them instant access to broader reach to the market place. Being an ODM also, they were managed to keep the price of the device lower compared to Home grown Indian brands. The change in market dynamics dented the sales of Indian brands in big way and they scrambled to realign their strategy.

Vivo and Oppo infact opened their wallet and went for carpet promotion of their product whereas new entrant like LeEco and well established brand Gionee also went for advertisement route. On a contrary, Indian Brand played it strategically an pulled down their advertisement money to conserve their cash in order to be in the market place for long.

In my opinion, most of the Chinese brands are not EBITA positive and will not be the same in next threeyear. They hired Indian resources locally but the decision happens at the headquarters. Indian Players are playing a waiting game when these brands will be tired of buying market share on the basis of advertisement and discount and will start pulling out the Indian market the way many Chinese application provider after spending millions of $'s, acquired millions of user base but failed to make positive RoI and pulled out of India.

India is a market place where perception leads the product adoption not the Technology. For Indian, if they spend even $100 on Smartphone then they want uninterrupted quality coupled with servicing.

It will not be too far when advertisement led Smartphone sell through as well as user acquisition will start hurting the cash reserve of Chinese Brand and am sure that in next 12 months half of them will quit the Indian market place