Both HTC and LG will announce new smartphones in India this week.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move hit smartphone sales too, with some manufacturers reporting up to 90 per cent hit in numbs during the initial weeks. As a result of cash-crunch, major manufacturers have been holding off new launches. In February, however, things seem to be recovering with at least two brands, HTC and LG, set to announce new models this week.
HTC has sent out press invitations for an event on February 21 to usher in its new U Ultra smartphone in India. The high-end phone was originally announced on January 12, at HTC’s “For U” event in London. With a 5.7-inch QHD screen, Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB RAM and a 3,000mAh battery, the U Ultra is clearly a flagship smartphone. It sports a secondary display above the main display like the LG V20, spanning 2-inches. The phone also offers HTC Sense Companion, which is an AI for suggestions what you do.
A day later, LG will release its updated K-series of smartphones in the presence of Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. There have been indications that the new phones will be locally produced at the company’s Noida facility. Prasad had attended the earlier K-series launch in April last year. The new K-series phones will include K3, K4, K8 and K10. All these phones will offer rear fingerprint scanner and 120-degree wide-angle front camera lens.
Back in April last year, India was expected to overtake the US as the second-largest smartphone market. The report from Morgan Stanley showed that India would have an annual growth of 23 per cent through 2018. However, India’s smartphone market was adversely affected by the demonetisation wave, research firm IDC said in its Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. Smartphone shipments clocked 25.8 million units during Q4 2016, down 20.3 per cent from the previous quarter.
The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month is expected to inject some much-needed impetus in the market as there will be a host of hardware and software announcements at the event. Within weeks the top smartphones announced there will come to the Indian market and this could revive customer sentiment in the segment.
However, it seems Indian manufacturers, already struggling from the pressure of Chinese brands, will struggle for longer as they figure out what will be their future strategy. For the first time, no Indian manufacture features in the top five of India’s smartphone market as IDC’s Q4 2016 figures show the top shelf dominated Chinese smartphones, some of whom are relatively new in the market. Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Lenovo, all Chinese, with South Korea’s Samsung sitting on the top.
Surprisingly, Micromax seems to be one of the worst-hit along with Yu, its sub-brand. Both brands were once considered valuable and more importantly, innovative. A year ago, Micromax used to hold the top position in the smartphone market; now, the brand is struggling and no more likes to talk about its smartphone portfolio.
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