Hyderabad: Boycotting Chinese smartphones seems to benefit rival brands like Samsung.
"In the smartphone industry, the penetration of Chinese brands is very high and very few brands can match it. People also don't have much of a choice because in every price band you have Chinese brands as leaders. For instance, in the budget segment we have Xiaomi and Realme and in the mid-budget segment, we have Oppo, Vivo. The only brand which we see can leverage the situation is Samsung as India is a very price-sensitive market and people always look for value for many products," said Prachir Singh, senior analyst at market research firm - Counterpoint.
Prachir Singh is also of the opinion that in a globalised world the origin of a product doesn't matter much to the final consumer.
"Looking from a different perspective, you cannot label a product as Chinese or non-Chinese because this is a globalised world and most of the components used in making phones come from multiple regions."
Speaking on the anti-China sentiments he said almost 99 per cent of the phones sold in India are assembled in India. So it is all about consumer perception.
Ever since the tussle broke out between Indian and China, most of the Chinese smartphone companies are trying to distance themselves from their homeland.
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Prachir Singh has also explained that if the situation de-escalates in less than 30 or 45 days then we won't see any resurgence for more brands as the rival brands require huge marketing and branding activities.
"As most of the smartphones are assembled in India so the Chinese companies are providing huge employment opportunities in India and in a way are also contributing to the GDP and economy of the country," he added.
India as a mobile manufacturing hub
Recently, a senior HMD Global executive has said that with companies looking at a "China-plus one" strategy in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, India presents an "attractive" opportunity as a manufacturing destination with availability of skilled labour force and a young consumer base.
"There is an ambition of making India a global hub for mobile devices specifically, and COVID-19 has accelerated this process. COVID-19 has driven companies to follow the China-plus one strategy when it comes to manufacturing and supply chain," HMD Global Vice President – Corporate Business Development Ajey Mehta said at the Horasis India Meeting.
"Added to that is India's low per capita income and the skilled labour that we have here. We have the demographic dividend of a young consumer base. So it is really attractive for companies to come in and set up," he added.
He also observed that 5G will bring in more growth opportunities in the Indian market.
"So that's going to demand more and more smartphones, and only accelerates the requirement to have smartphones here in India," he said, adding that the government has taken a number of steps to push mobile phone manufacturing in India.
A recent report by ICEA-EY had outlined that while India appears to have all necessary ingredients to encourage mobile manufacturing at scale and boost exports from the country, what seems to be missing is the policy support to attract lead firms, incentivise production and unveil measures that provide cost competitiveness to industry or help offset the disabilities suffered by Indian firms vis-a-vis Vietnam and China.
The report estimated that India suffers from various disabilities like high cost of power and tax.
This renders India almost 10 per cent and 20 per cent less competitive than Vietnam and China, respectively, it had noted and suggested that India must address these disability issues in the long run.
(With PTI Inputs)
