Micromax to Lava: India's phone makers want to shed their 'affordable' image

India’s homegrown smartphone manufacturers such as Micromax and Karbonn are now looking at re-branding themselves  in an effort to compete with global players such as Samsung and Nokia. The Indian brands have long held the USP of being affordable options, but were left out of the premium smartphone race, something which they are now looking to remedy by repositioning themselves. A report in the  Times of India notes that brands such as Micromax, Lava, Zen, Spice, Intex and Karbonn, now feature foreign models and locales in their advertisements. The brands have also begun associating themselves with sporting events, perhaps in an attempt to increase brand recall, as well as form a youthful, cool and young brand image. As the New Indian Express points out, Micromax was the title sponsor for several matches including a 2012 ODI series between India and Sri Lanka, which was titled the Micromax Cup. Bangalore-based Karbonn too was a title sponsor of Champions League Twenty20 last year. [caption id=“attachment_1020019” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Micromax Canvas 4 in this file photo.[/caption] Shubhodip Pal, chief marketing officer at Micromax, said to the Times of India, “While the Rs 13,000- Rs 20,000 is currently the sweet spot in the smartphone segment, we want to further increase our presence in the premium-end with relevant products.” In fact Micromax’s latest flagship device the Canvas 4, not only offered decent specs but also software features such as ‘Kiss to unlock’, ‘Smart pause for video’. The phone itself was priced at Rs 17,999 much higher than the earlier Canvas HD phone which had a Rs 14k price tag. The Canvas 4 is retailing at nearly Rs 19,000 (white version) on websites like Flipkart, Amazon.in, etc. A Gizbot report notes that Lava will be the next to increase its price point to Rs 20k with the upcoming launch of  Lava Iris Pro. Research firm Canalys  recently revealed that Micromax is currently second  to Samsung in the Indian smartphone market. Micromax has a 22 percent share in the market, and Karbonn trails at third with 8 percent. Samsung is of course well the king of the market with nearly a third of the market under its belt. Jessica Kwee, Canalys Analyst said that, ‘India is a market in transition, moving from feature phones to smartphones, and is a market that offers huge potential as hundreds of millions of users have yet to upgrade their feature phones. Domestic vendors, such as Micromax and Karbonn, are capitalising on the popularity of their feature phones and are quicker to respond to local market demands, hence their current success.’ India is now also the third-largest smartphone market in the world after China (world’s largest smartphone market) and USA on number two. For India’s home-grown vendors the smartphone market is something they hope to capitalise on. While low-priced smartphones have done the trick for them in the past, to take on global vendors like Samsung, they need to offer more products in various price range. The push for a higher-price smartphone, thus makes complete sense.