Samsung to launch online-only smartphone series to take on Xiaomi

This series is likely to focus on the Rs 5,000-Rs 15,000 price segment, which is the most popular and competitive segment.
Samsung to launch online-only smartphone series to take on Xiaomi
Samsung to launch online-only smartphone series to take on Xiaomi
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Samsung has been gradually losing its mobile phones market share in India and a large part of it to the Chinese phone maker Xiaomi. For the quarter July to September 2017, the 2 companies enjoyed an equal share of 23.5% each according to a market study carried out by a US based research firm International Data Corporation.

Interestingly, Xiaomi outsells Samsung on the online market. Samsung has a strong brick and mortar infrastructure to push its products across the counter. With a comparatively lower level of internet penetration, Samsung might have underestimated the potential of the Indian online market.

Now the Korean giant has woken up to the reality and is trying to position products for sale exclusively online. To win back its market leader position, an Economic Times report states that Samsung could release a few models of smartphones targeted at the Indian market and priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 and sold only through online sources. This segment is currently the most competitive segment and also happens to be Xiaomi’s stronghold, with some of its most popular devices, Redmi, Redmi series falling under this category.

The company also aims to set right the back-end operations for handling the deliveries and other logistics for the online market, so that the number of layers are reduced and overall expenses controlled and margins improved.

As such, Samsung does have some devices which are not sold through the physical stores. The ‘On’ series phones, the Samsung Galaxy A8+ were offered exclusively on Amazon India. Priced at Rs 32,990 the Galaxy A8+ took on Mi Mix2 from Xiaomi. The prices, specs and features of both the devices are almost similar.

The way it might pan out is Samsung trying to gain on Xiaomi on the online market while Xiaomi tries to match Samsung with opening more physical stores. Samsung is hoping that the route for its competitor is more challenging and that it will emerge the winner.  

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