As users of feature phones in India, which form nearly 70 per cent of the mobile phone market in the country, look to transition to ‘affordable smartphones’, Microsoft Devices is looking at bringing down the prices of products in its Lumia series to grab a pie of the immensely competitive segment.
“Driven by increasing aspirations and the replacement trend — the affordable smartphone segment (Rs. 8,000-12,000) is seeing exponential growth,” Viral Oza, director-marketing, Nokia India, a subsidiary of Microsoft Mobile Oy said.
Microsoft Devices operates the handset business acquired from Nokia earlier this year for over $7.2 billion.
He added, “We see a lot of opportunity in the affordable smartphone segment. So, Lumia prices will come down. We presently have about 4-5 devices in this segment and this number will go up.”
Presently, the company sells 13 devices under the Lumia series in the Indian market, of which four — Lumia 530, 520, 525 and 630 — are priced under Rs. 12,000.
According to research firm IDC, the overall India mobile phone market stood at 63.21 million units in second quarter of 2014, an increase of 5 per cent over Q1 2014.
The firm said sub-$200 (about Rs. 12,000) category of the smartphone market is increasing in terms of new shipment share. It added with the influx of Chinese vendors and Mozilla entering the smartphone category at the $50 price level, the low-end segment of the smartphone market will become crucial in the coming quarters.
On changes post Microsoft taking over, Mr. Oza said, “Things are pretty good. We continue to operate like we used to. There are some process changes but there are no major differences.”
