If you were wondering why Google’s hardware range is not as visible in India, as some of its rivals like Apple and Amazon are, you need not wait for long. It has been revealed that the technology giant has well-laid plans for the Indian market and the products it aims to push in the first phase will include its home speakers, Google Home and Google Home Mini which will directly take on Amazon’s Echo range, which is being frequently advertised in the country.
Similarly, the premium laptop Pixelbook and a smartphone in the mid-segment would find their way into the market accompanied by highly visible advertising and promotion campaign.
The company is understood to have shared these plans for the Indian market in its conferences held recently in different venues like Malaysia, the US and the UK. The attendees in these sales conferences included large format retailers from India as well. It has been pointed out that the rapid expansion of the 4G internet connectivity, spearheaded by Reliance Jio, has spurred Google into formalizing its plans for its consumer products which largely rely on fast connectivity to be use to the consumers.
On the timeline for these plans to be put into action, this very month of April 2018 will see the two home speakers being made available in the market across the country. The mid-segment Pixel smartphone may follow in the middle of the year and a premier or flagship device later to coincide with the Indian festival season, around Diwali. Besides the smartphones and the speakers, the other home automation products that Google has in its plans, include the doorbell, camera, alarm system and smoke detector which are sold under the brand name ‘Nest’. Google may bring its Wi-Fi offering Google Wi-Fi also into the Indian market.
Another facet of Google’s new plans for India is also expected to be creating the space for all these products in the offline markets. Some of the marketing and branding activities now found missing will be introduced on the lines one sees a brand like Apple. It has been reported that Google came to appreciate the power of the brick-and-mortar model of business in the Indian context, from its own Pixel sales in the country where 36% of the sales came from the offline retail segment only marginally lower than that from the 38% clocked through online sources.
Though the company has not spelt out any of these plans officially, it is possible these may include the Alphabet Inc owned company may setup its own exclusive retail outlets in India as well, going forward.