Of late, we have seen that budget smartphones of sub Rs. 10,000 (US$150) and approximately Rs. 25,000 (US$400) are flavour of the Indian mobile market. Hardly, a day passes when a smartphone of under Rs. 10,000 is announced. Yesterday, HTC of Taiwan launched its entry-level smartphone Desire 210 for Rs. 8,700 and for the last few weeks, Indian handsets makers Lava is on launching spree and have announced budget smartphones under their Iris series. Now, we understand that Google Nexus smartphone with $100 price tag is reportedly in the works and this smartphone will also be in the range of sub Rs. 10K category. One should also not forget the resounding successs of Moto G from the stable of Motorola, which carries a price tag of Rs. 12,499, but Flipkart is throwing many offers and by returning your any old smartphone, you can get it for approximately Rs. 10K. And now, Motorola is coming out with economical Moto E smartphone to capitalise on the success of Moto G, which will be cheaper than Moto G.
Moreover, we shall see one more player in budget segment – Obi Mobiles , which is the initiative of ex-Ceo of Apple, who is jumping in this fray, and will be launching its smartphones next month in India in the price range of Rs. 5k to 7K.
Similarly, there is war in mid-segment field also and one can consider Samsung Galaxy Grand, Moto X, Sony Xperia M2 Dual, LG G Pro Lite, and recently launched HTC Desire 816, Gionee Elife E7 or upcoming Gionee Elife S5.5 and many more alternatives from the houses of Lenovo,Micromax,Karbonn and Lava etc. All these smartphones are below Rs. 25k, and as per our knowledge, are selling in good numbers whichever are available as on date.
The majority of smartphones buyers prefer budget or mid-range smartphones in India and that is the reason that the high-end smartphones from the stable of Samsung,Apple,LG and Sony may not be selling in as great numbers compared to their economical variants. We are not sure of the numbers, but this we understand after talking with various retailers and distributors of smartphones. The other reason for good traction of mid-range smartphones is that nowadays, the users change their smartphones quite frequently for various reasons and hence they feel comfortable if they have to change their smratphones of smaller value as they get negligible trade-off prices.
For above reasons, some of the reputed smartphones companies are feeling the heat and of late, we have seen considerable drop of prices of premium models of smartphones. In the weeks to come, you will see further reduction in prices of flagship devices of almost all the brands.
