Make-In-India Starts To Show Promise As Smart-Phone Sale Increases!

BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in NEWS from the day he sat on the Iron Throne of Indian Democratic System. Be it his policies, programs, initiatives or his degree, all have been the subject of scrutiny. While some subjects have received praise, others have faced strong opposition from the opposition parties and Indian citizens. One such initiative taken by our PM is “Make in India”. Flat at first, this initiative has slowly begun to show some promise as reports suggest that “Make in India” smart-phones have come of age and are now pushing its sales.

According to a recent report published by the market research firm CyberMedia Research (CMR) “made in India” handsets contributed 67 percent to the sales which is the all time high percent in Modi’s timeline. India shipped a total of 52.8 million handsets against 55.4 million in the first quarter this year; registering a decline of 4 percent (year-on-year) reports TECH 2.

The contribution of Indian brands has gone up by 7 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2015 due to introduction of shipments by Chinese smartphone maker LeEco and launch of new handsets from Lenovo, Oppo, LG, Panasonic, Micromax, Intex, LYF (RJio) and Vivo in 10,000-15,000 price bands.  The contribution of Chinese and global brands interestingly has declined in the same period. “We saw for the first time that price band of 10,000-15,000 contributed the maximum (22 percent) towards the smart-phone shipments. Usually, the prime contributor used to be the price bracket of 6,000-8,000,” said Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR’s Telecom Practice.

The average selling prices of smart-phones has however increased from 12,285 in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 12,983 in the first quarter this year. The same was 10,364 in the first quarter of 2015.

Faisal also added that among the handsets produced out of India, 66 percent of the 3G smart-phones and 60 percent of the 4G smart-phones were manufactured in India itself. But still the domestic players are looking at the profits they can gain in 3G technology, while the global players are increasingly focusing on 4G LTE technology. Faisal asserts that time has come when Indian organizations should look at the premium segment where their contribution is negligible.

The overall smart-phone market in India is owned by the “top three” players that are Samsung, Micromax and Intex respectively but Krishna Mukherjee, analyst, telecoms at CMR believes that Micromax will soon be creating a new approach towards marketing and sales strategy. “In the second quarter, we are waiting to see how Micromax performs after tweaking its brand logo,” states Mukherjee.

Though Make-In-India is impacting the Indian GDP in a positive way but it is not having any impact on the unemployment rate in India. As of April, India's rural unemployment rate stands at 7.15% and urban at 9.62%. Make-In-India was an initiative taken by the PM to not only stabilize the economy but also to create new job opportunities. Government needs to re-visit their Make-In-India layout and think about the second promise of its initiative as well.

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