Has the Smart Phone Industry Matured?

Hi Guys,

Long back, I had written a post on how Samsung was losing its plot in India in the Smart Phone segment. In this post, I try to find out the way the Indian Smart Phone Industry is panning out and how different players are fighting it out.

Has the Smart Phone Industry matured?

Large Displays, Better RAMs, Better Resolution, More Megapixels… This is how brands are differentiating. Even the flagships have concepts like Force Touch, Iris Scanner which are not really great innovations. Today any smartphone in the range of Rs. 10000 has a good screen, decent camera and a big display. And brands matter less and less. So many Chinese brands are coming in. Nubia, Meizu, PhiComm, Coolpad… These are some of the brands that came in last year and had a decent crowd going for it. Reliability has not been a big question mark as the OEM tends to be the same player. The newsmakers have been fast shifting… From Motorola to Xiaomi to OnePlus to Asus in a span of 2 years.

Flagships are not really attention seekers anymore. Who would spend 40000 bucks on a phone when a 10000 bucks phone has 75% of those features. Apple thought it could extract its brand premium and priced 6S at a whopping price of Rs. 62000. Only to realize that Indians value their money and had to reduce price by nearly 15% overnight.

Do UIs Matter?

With majority of phone makers coming out with their own UI like MIUI (Xiaomi), Zen UI (Asus), Oxygen OI (OnePlus), does it really matter to the end user? Some of the UIs are pretty different, but none difficult to manage. The interface remains pretty much the same. And it doesn’t seem to be a key feature that impacts Buying Behaviour. Before OnePlus Two came out, CyanogenMed (which was used in Oneplus One) was highly critical and said OnePlus Two would fail because there was no Cyanogen. OnePlus said Oxygen UI is the best UI that is available today. But, no one bothered about the UI. No one either criticized or praised Oxygen UI.

I just wonder why many companies donot stick to the stock UI like Motorola. It is less complicated, straight forward to use and people find it good. So, why spend lot of R&D on a UI which is really not different?

Less Choice is better?

There is a concept in Behavioural Economics which states that lesser the choice, better the proposition. More the choice, people tend to get away or become confused. Most of the companies had a very good sales in the first generation – Motorala (Moto E, Moto G, Moto X), Xiaomi (Mi3, Redmi 1S), One Plus One and Asus Zenfone. Once these phones started coming out with more and more models, people started getting confused and the sales started dipping.

Any new Game Changers?

One of the key requirements of users these days is better batteries. But if you raise the capacity, the phone becomes heavy. What we need is an innovative technology that could provide better powerful batteries. I don’t think any of the existing companies are looking to solve this. The solution could come in from a new player who specializes in manufacturing batteries (someone like Panasonic or maybe Tesla or a new kid in the block).

Apart from that, most of the innovations claimed by companies are really not Game Changers. And again they are easily imitable in nature. The Industry looks to have hit a plateau where larger display, more MPs and better resolution are available with everyone and are affordable too.

Worldwide too, it doesn’t seem vastly different with Apple gorging up 94% of the Smartphone profits despite selling less than a third of the smart phones. The remaining players fight for the 6%. Apple has been able to play with its brand name, replacements and stature. But, not sure how long it would convince people to buy Apple, just because it is Apple…

It appears to have lot of parallels with the PC industry. Effectively, it looks like a field where everyone around looks the same and you got to sell more, spend less to make more profits…

Happy Reading!

Has Samsung lost its plot in Indian Smart Phone Industry?

Hi Guys,

When I saw the ratings for Samsung Galaxy S5 in Flipkart, I was quite shocked. I expected a poor show, but I didn’t expect 1.6 out of 5 for the new phone. It made me think as to whether Samsung has lost its plot in India somewhere down the line?

To understand this sudden dip, it is essential for us to understand the evolution of Touch Screen Phones or the Smart Phones (both terms might be mutually exclusive, but most Touch Screen Phones are smart phones and vice versa) in India.

Nokia 7710 was first touch screen phone in India (year 2004). But, it was in the late 2000s that Touch Screen phones got a bit popular in India. When Nokia introduced a stream of Touch Screen phones in late 2000s and early 2010s, there were few takers. But, they were not much impressed with the interface. Sony had a few good phones and then there were niche players like iPhones for which Apple didn’t have any proper retail strategy in India. It was around this point of time, Google’s Android phones were becoming popular.

It is at this stage that we need to understand how the commonly used jargon in Strategy class ‘Diversification vs Focus’ worked here. Diversification is a strategy where a firm is present across different sectors instead of focusing on a single business (eg: Tata Group). Focus is a strategy where a firm concentrates on a single business and focuses all its efforts on the single business unit (eg: Ferrari in Sports cars).

In the early 2010s, the touch screen market entered the growth phase. Diversification strategy works in Growth phase. Samsung introduced a few Android mobiles in India and they were becoming a huge success. Buoyed by the success, Samsung started introducing a wide range of phones available across all price categories from Rs. 7000 to Rs. 40000. At this point of time, other players were very focused like Apple or HTC. Samsung had phones to offer to all type of customers. The Diversification worked for Samsung. Customers thought Samsung Phones had value for the price they paid for. These phones became an aspirational product for many of the youngsters. Samsung rode on the absence of competitors.

The next phase is an interesting one. Around 2012-2013, Samsung introduced Samsung S3, which was a total revamp of S2 and provided a wide range of features. They also had large screen phones at the middle segment like Grand which was also a success. On the other side, they were losing the market at the lower end of the market. Micromax had slowly started to dominate. They offered phones with same features at around 50% of the price Samsung provided. Samsung’s ‘Cost Leadership’ strategy started to vanish. At the other end of the spectrum, Apple started to focus in India and iPhone4 and 4S were major successes in India. Nokia’s Lumia Series with Windows 8 OS had quite a few takers who wanted alternatives.

Enter the next phase in late 2013 and early 2014. I feel this phase is the beginning of Maturity phase in the Smart phone market with less and less innovations coming and cost becoming an important factor. Micromax rode on the ‘Cost Leadership’ strategy and made Hugh Jackman their brand ambassador. They introduced 5 inch screen phones for Rs. 10000 odd and their Canvas series was a huge hit. The same features in a pure branded phone would cost double.

Nokia’s Lumia had its set of loyal customers. Apple had started to increase its value share. Google’s Nexus 4 and 5 were real alternatives to people who were looking for premium segment phones.  Moto G opened to a stunning response with all phones sold out in Flipkart in no point of time. Samsung had no significant launches in the mean time. I have a feeling that Samsung started to think that they belong to the ‘Premium segment’. Launching Galaxy S5 at Rs. 51000 (around the price of an iPhone) just proves what Samsung thought about the phone. If you compare S5 with Galaxy S4 at around Rs. 35000 or Nexus 5 at around Rs. 30000, you will know how overpriced S5 is.

At this point of time, Samsung still is the leader in Indian Smart phone industry by a huge distance. But, if you think as to how Nokia lost its plot a few years back, you would wonder if Samsung could lose it the same way.

Other point to ponder is how Samsung is going to respond to the competitor’s strategy. At one point of time, Samsung were the ‘Cost Leaders’. Now Micromax has taken the tag away from them. It would be difficult for Samsung to occupy the same rung as Micromax. Competitors like Nokia, Apple have entered into ‘Differentiation’ strategy with unique products.

The question that comes to one mind is whether the time has come for Samsung to shed its Diversification strategy and start focusing on a particular segment? Also, do they have the time to do the same?

It would be interesting to observe how the smart phone industry would pan out in the next months (Years is too long for the industry).

Happy Reading!

Advantage Nokia?

Hi Guys,

It looked as if all the roads were closed for Nokia. From the days of being a very dominating player, they were pushed to an ordinary player whose smart phones were terribly failing in the market. Their unwillingness to switch to a different OS seemed perilous. When Apple came out with innovations and Samsung followed the path with comparatively cheaper phones, Nokia’s comeback strategy looked difficult.

Do you India’s most trustable brand? It’s Nokia. It has been in the number One place for quite some time. Nokia has been my favourite brand for a long time. It was the market leader in India’s mobile segment till last year. Even now, it has a dominating power among the lower income group. The stable and reliable lower price phones were the supporting factors. But when it came to higher end mobile, Nokia lacked market space and Samsung conquered it.

For the past few months, Nokia has been trying to innovate and come out with a new product. The initial Lumia models were quite average and didn’t perform as expected. 808 Pureview was promoted with Camera as the main product and that worked to some extent for Nokia. Camera crazy guys started to adore the Pureview.

But, Nokia needed something big to be back. So did Windows Phone OS. For both the players, the new product is nearly a ‘Do or Die’ product. After a series of hypes, the introduction ceremony took place today and the whole Twitter was trending with the tagline #switchtolumia

Nokia has succeeded to create the initial impact among the customer’s mindset. With Apple lacking innovations and Samsung caught in the copycat scandal, it is the best time for Nokia to breakthrough. Nokia seems to promote the product with the tag of Wireless Charging. Basically, you don’t need to plug in and charge but if you keep the phone on the charge pad it will get charged. How innovative is this? The technology is innovative, but the flexibility it will create depends on the convenience factor.

Also, the first phone with Windows Phone 8 OS creates some hype. After failures, there is a hope that Microsoft will come out with a better OS as it is very critical for the future of the mobile OS of Microsoft. Also the addition of Pureview seems to be an attractive feature as it promises better Camera than other smart phones.

The initial hype is great. With Apple phones getting stereotyped and Samsung facing troubles, the wind is blowing towards Nokia. Now it depends on how strong Nokia’s sail is. It’s Make or Break situation for Nokia.

Let us wait and see how customers respond.

Happy Reading!!!

iOS (3) vs Android (2.3) - My Views!

Hi Guys,

It has been two days since I started using my new phone – HTC Explorer.

It has paved way for me to use Android – Gingerbread (V2.3) in particular.

After having used my iPod Touch 2G for quite a long time, let me give you a little amateurish view of iOS vs Android.

Before starting, let me be clear. My iPod was not updatable beyond iOS 3. Also I have been using Android for 2 days (not even have I tested lot of parameters). So, if you people want a very professional review, I request you to read another review from a tech geek.

The first and foremost thing was I felt Android to be much user friendly than iOS. In my iPod, I had to use iTunes for everything. Copying songs, installing games, applications everything needed iTunes. Without iTunes the instrument was just useless (particularly when there was no Wi-Fi).

Android offered me a large space to get applications. I can use internet in lot of ways. It allows Internet to access from the system directly which offers more scope for people who don’t have Wi-Fi. I can easily install Apps and delete them at will. In iOS for deleting apps, you need iTunes. If something is installed in iPod then nothing can be done.

As far as Applications are concerned, I think most of the commonly used applications are developed for both the OS. I’m able to see most of the Apps in both the Playstore and iStore. So, can’t classify more on Applications.

Transferring of data is much easy in Android. It allows data to be transferred from phone to memory card easily. In iPod transferring of data can be one hell of a job, particularly I have faced big headaches with photo sharing and eventually I didn’t even have photos.

On the basis of Ease of Use, I would vote for iPod, though in Android a lot depends on the phone manufacturer. The look and feel in iPod in itself would make us comfortable. Everything was obvious with little options in iPod, whereas here I need to search for things and learning can be a bit difficult.

The look, feel and touch of iPod were great. But it more of a closed environment where you needed iTunes for everything, particularly without Wi-Fi things was terrible. Though, with Wi-Fi, things would have been different. I still remember the awkward moment when I updated from iOS 2 to iOS 3 and everything was wiped clean. I was so happy that the iPod didn’t support iOS 4. Though the advantage is that everything is uniform since all the products are manufactured by Apple and user interface is same everywhere.

Android is more comfortable. It is more user-friendly and it allows us to explore easily. Access to internet through a PC is one good feature. The way it allows to move through Apps and easy installation and removal of Apps makes it a great gadget. To install many Apps you need internal memory and it depends on phone and much of the interface and features will depend on the phone manufacturer. So, it is better to analyze the phone well before buying.

Happy Reading!!!

Power of Mobile Internet in India!

Hi Guys,

Do you use mobile phone to access internet? If your answer is yes, then you contribute to one half of Internet population in India. Yes, one half of Indians use mobile phones to access internet. It was 2% in January 2009 and in a span of 3 years it has become 48% in April 2012. Maybe, by this time it would have crossed 50%

Most of the times, I browse through PC, but mobile has been a great companion for me. Mobile Internet users can be broadly classified into two types. The first one comprises of people who do not have access to PC or broadband or who feel broadband is expensive (a survey shows that Indian people are ready to spend Rs. 50 per month on an average). The second category is people, who use mobile to browse while travelling or not being at home. I belong to the second category.

Mobile Internet offers great tariffs. There are packages for 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 2 months, etc depending on service providers. So, whenever I am travelling I activate the 1 day pack for which I will ultimately spend very less. The main purpose I would need internet while travelling is to check mails, to access Facebook and to see any other important site. Many of my friends who stay outside use mobile phones as modem. They use monthly packs and it is both cheap and good enough for browsing.

Two years back, when I started using Internet on mobile, the speed was very low and connection was very poor. At many places, the towers won’t support EDGE (which is an advanced version of GPRS which enables high speed). These days the speeds have improved a lot (am speaking of 2G technology) and so have the infrastructure.

A month back, the modem in my home went berserk and hence I was not able to use broadband. I used my mobile as a modem and it was very handy.  The speed was not great, but it was good enough to browse and download basic stuffs. I was amazed to see speeds of 200 Kbps which is one tenth of my broadband speed.

If we are able to get such good speeds in 2G, then surely 3G would be superb. There are lot of issues with infrastructure and tariff. But remember that it is just blooming. Recently tariffs have been slashed hard. Earlier I had a doubt whether 3G will be successful in India. But in 2 years time, I think lot of people will start using 3G.

With lot of websites becoming mobile friendly (even my blog is mobile friendly – set so in blogger settings) and increase in sales of smart phones, I think browsing in Mobile would be as good as browsing in PC. With decrease in costs of smart phones and improvement in Infrastructure of service providers, definitely India is all set to become a Mobile Browsing country.

This post is written for Internet is Fun Conest (http://www.vodafone.in/fun) on Indiblogger. Indibloggers, please vote for my post at this page

Happy Reading!!!

Things that Crossed my Way!

Hi Guys,

The last few days have been mysterious. I have been busy, yet I don’t know what I was doing. One of my friends asked me what I did on Friday evening. All I remembered was sitting in front of computer and I was not able to remember what I was exactly doing. After a long thought, I said I was going through various websites. I do remember searching for question papers and project ideas, but beyond that, nothing.

Mobile phone messages have been troubling me a lot in the past few days. Particularly a bunch of idiotic guys have been causing a lot of disturbance. Long back, at least some messages used to informative or entertaining. These days messages are neither informative nor entertaining, they are just boring. Coming back to this bunch of guys, they just send Good morning or Good night as a message. I am receiving it four or five times in the morning and the same repeats in the night. What more, all of them are residing in the same room.

Day before yesterday, there was low voltage in our locality. Despite that, I fell asleep and then this message came – ‘Good Night! Sweet Dreams’. I woke up and found out there was no power. This Good Night message turned my good night into a bad night. I was not able to sleep for a long time.

It has been two months since I got my motor bike and it has been a good learning period. I have started to ride well. From my experience, 90% of people don’t follow the basic road rules. This applies to both the vehicle riders and the pedestrians. At signals, people don’t leave space for left turn. Sometimes, if there are very few vehicles, pedestrians cross the road even during green signals (I have seen two accidents occurring due to it). Many riders don’t use their indicators. This is better when compared to the use of wrong indicators. Share Auto drivers are the people whom you need to be careful with. You will never know what he will do the next second. The worst thing is people scold you if you follow the rules.

I was reading the Holiday activities post, I wrote during December 2009. I thought I spend those holidays very usefully when compared to these holidays. I went to learn driving and also I had gone to CAD class along with Dhasthaheer and Vimal. I remembered those wonderful days when we used to get to the class by using cycles. We used to ride for around 20 minutes and it was all fun. These days all of us have got motor bikes, yet cycles were the real fun.

That’s it for now.

Happy Reading!!!

Mobile Photographs!

Hi Guys,

I prefer to take photographs using my digital camera, but I can't take it to all the places and have with me all the times. Sometimes, I use the camera in my mobile phone. Its just a 0.3 MP camera and can produce images of 640X480 resolution. I capture images just as fun and I never expect good images though I get decent images sometimes, thanks to the good quality of Nokia. After taking many photos I understood that the main criteria should be that the surrounding should be bright and there should be natural light. Here I share some of the photos with you.

Vegetable Vendor in Chithirai street, near Meenakshi Amman Temple

A large Nandhi nearby Meenakshi Amman Temple

Found this in a college, where I went to participate in a workshop

Greenish Farm- took it during a train journey from Madurai to Chennai

River Cauvery from the train. Took during the same journey

Train Track located nearby houses. Took during the same journey

Took it in Anna Nagar, Madurai

A picture of a tall light post in Madurai

Happy Viewing!!!

My thoughts on MNP!

Hi Guys,

The recent advancements in the Indian mobile service providers have been remarkable. One significant scheme introduced is the MNP or the Mobile Number Portability and the other is the introduction of 3G.

The advertisements broadcasted by service providers for MNP has been interesting. I have not been watching television regularly in the past few days and hence I am not aware of the ads in TV. I hear to FM stations every morning and I noted that Vodafone has got the best marketing strategy. The conversation is such that the mobile number is so important to the person and he can’t change the number, although the service is poor. The other person suggests Vodafone and also gives the toll free number for porting to Vodafone.

I became fascinated in the MNP and surfed through the service provider’s websites. It was just amazing to see that all the companies welcome the porting customers with broad hands and offer them a lot of freebies and there are no such offers for the existing customers. For example, you maybe a 3 year old customer of a service provider. But they won’t mind you and your friend porting to that service provider will make cheaper calls than you. Amusing, isn’t it?

TRAI says that a service provider can charge `19 for the porting. But, the service providers are porting you free and are providing you an initial talk time.  An intelligent person can make use of this prospect. According to TRAI, you can port your number once in 30 days. So after 30 days of the first company, you can port to the next one and enjoy their offers. When the offers get over, you can skip to the next and so on. Anyway the offers will last for a few months only. If you are clever, you can save a lot.

I have been receiving text messages from my service provider saying that they strive hard to provide better service and thank the customers for having been their valuable customer. I’m planning to port my number, so that I can enjoy the offers. But have some talk time left in my account and need to empty that first. Many of my friends have already ported their service providers for the same reason.

Happy Reading!!!

A little information about phones!

Hi Guys,

Hope you all are fine in spite of a hot summer with long power cuts! Horrifying to think about the days that are going to come, when Earth nears Sun in May!

It’s been long since I wrote my last post. I’m quite busy as I am nearing the end of my fourth semester. I get only a scarce time and then too, I’ll be busy watching IPL matches. Speaking about IPL, this edition is more interesting than the previous editions. Except Mumbai, all other teams have had their share of sweet and bitter times. Now nearly all the teams have to win their remaining matches to get into the semifinals. Let’s see who conquers who?

I had a good last week in general. I got a new phone. Actually dad’s phone was not functioning properly and he was having a terrible time with it. So he asked for my phone so that I can get a newer one.

Nokia 2626- My old phone

First, let me tell about my old phone. I had Nokia 2626 and I was using it for past 10 months. It was a very nice experience using that phone. The main advantage of using that phone was its standby time. Its battery was so good that the charge lasted for a week. Also it had large message storing space (nearly 1000 messages, though I used to store less than 100). The main trouble I had with the phone was the volume, particularly Ringtone volume. I won’t be able to hear a call even if I was in the next room. The internal memory was just 2 MB and so it used to take some time for loading. Except that, it was quite a good phone.

The new one I have got is Nokia 2690. It’s a new model and was released by Nokia this March. The phone is better than another model 2626 considering the features. But I would say both the phones are worth its cost. I bought the earlier one for Rs.2000 and this one for Rs.2800. Speaking about the phone it consists of a basic VGA camera, music player, FM radio, memory slot and Bluetooth.

Nokia 2690- My new phone

I have used this phone for nearly a week and so good so far. But, I’ve hard time adapting to this phone. In my older phone to change the earpiece volume I have to press the left/right navigation keys. But in this phone I have to use up/down navigation keys. It was difficult to find it. In my earlier phone when replying to a message, I’ve to initially select the type of message. But in this phone, the message screen just appears (a step less). Initially I sent a few blank messages and realized my carelessness. The charge is not as good as 2626, but I expected it. It’s as good as any other Nokia phone.

Speaking about the features, the music player is good. Headset volume is fair (I rarely use headset) and speaker volume is very good. The sound clarity is also good. To be true, I didn’t expect a very good music player and I’m very happy since I love music.  Camera’s quality is not that good, but that was expected since it’s a basic model. I didn’t choose the phone for the camera; I chose it for the music player and am happy that it’s good. Display is very good, a larger 1.8” display and clarity is good too. Phone’s overall look is also good.

So, I’m totally impressed with this phone. I’ll give you some information about how I searched for the phone.

Samsung E2130

• Initially I fixed the price of the phone and went to some leading shops that sell mobile phones. What you must understand is there are 100s of models and you can’t expect the salesman to know all the models. So going to 3 or 4 shops will give you a wide idea (I got idea about 4 phones only after visiting 5 shops)
• Next I searched for all the phones that I heard in the shops in the net. I browsed the respective company’s website and also other common forums to know user’s reviews. In this process I came to know about some more phones.
• At last I went to the shops again and made a final enquiry about the price and availability (all the phones are not available in all the shops). The interesting thing is I came to know about Nokia 2690 in this process only.
• Other than 2690, I was also looking for Samsung E2130 and E2120. They are also good phones in this range. Particularly E2130 has dual speakers which mean great sound.
• Some general info about different phones: Samsung phones have good camera quality than other phones. They have more number of models than any other brand. When I searched in net, I found that LG phones were causing a lot of trouble to the users. Nokia remains the most preferred brand because of its quality and user-friendliness.  Nokia ‘5310 Xpress Music’ is the most popular phone in the market currently (it would be costing around Rs. 5000).

Coming back to the academic side, we will be writing the exams very soon. Later this week, I’ve my model exams followed by Practical exams, study holidays and semester exams which will end by the last of May. So, it’s important for me to concentrate and get good marks. Anyway I will be in touch with you guys now and then.

Happy reading!!!