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Mobile phone-maker Nokia – now owned by Finnish company HMD Global – is targeting to be amongst the top three smartphone players in India over the next couple of years.
According to Ajey Mehta, Vice-President and Country Head – India, HMD Global, the company is now looking at a “larger play” with an increased bouquet of offerings focussed across price points.
“2017 was a good year for us and we are expecting 2018 to be another good year. We are at a stage where we want to scale up, and the intention is to be amongst the top three players in the country over the next couple of years,” he told BusinessLine .
Sponsoring KKR
Mehta was here to announce Nokia as the principal sponsors for the Indian Premiere League franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), for two seasons (IPL 11 and IPL 12).
India is already considered to be among the top three markets for HMD Global (makers of Nokia).
Market sources point out that it will be a challenge for Nokia to break the dominance that Chinese smartphone brands (with the exception of Samsung) continue to have in India. These include Xiaomi, Vivo, Lenovo among others and they together occupy 54 per cent market share (till December 2017).
Research firm Counterpoint maintains in its March 6 report that Xiaomi has been the country’s largest smartphone brand with a market share of 25 per cent, Lenovo (including Motorola), Oppo and Vivo each have a 6 per cent market share. Korean brand Samsung has a 23 per cent market share.
Growth strategy
According to Counterpoint, the average selling point of smartphones in India has seen a 13 per cent year-on-year jump with increased demand in the mid-segment phones. However, this does not mean Nokia will focus on a particular range for its offerings.
As Mehta points out Nokia will be a “full-range” player; instead of focussing on one particular price point.
In fact, it will also not overlook the feature-phone segment where around 10-11 million devices are sold every month.
“We are a full range player and we will be beefing up (the portfolio) significantly across all price point. Even the feature phones are too large a segment to ignore, for us,” he added.
Both offline and online channels hold equal importance for the brand, which is witnessing a good traction on both fronts.
In fact, the company is planning to launch its own online portal to sell devices. (Nearly one out of every three mobiles sold in the country is via e-commerce.)
On the other hand, the company is also ramping up distribution channels with a focus on brick and mortar stores.
The brand’s current presence is through over 500 distributors and across 1,10,000 plus retail points.
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