India is fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. The innovation of mobile technology has done wonders to stay us connected all the time. Mobile phones have grown to be indispensable to our life. Mobile phone technology has done wonders to stay us connected 24×7.
However the same mobile phones also sometimes pose a threat to national security and with this reason, around 2008, Indian Govt. had asked all Indian telecom operators to implement checks on IMEI numbers (International Mobile Equipment Identity). Finally, in 2009, Department of telecommunication had asked mobile operators to bar services of handsets without IMEI numbers. The import of mobile handsets without IMEI numbers was banned. It also brought the death for around 25 million Chinese handsets then available in India through grey markets which were in usage but without IMEI. It was a big setback to Chinese handset manufactures as they had lost the opportunity in an emerging market.
Indian entrepreneurs saw a great opportunity in mobile handset market. In 2009, we saw the foray of Videocon group in mobile handset and emergence of new generation entrepreneurs who had launched their mobile handsets such as Micromax, Karbonn, Intex, Lava etc. There was a 360 degree marketing campaign from these companies from full front page advertisements to hoarding outside on a highway to TV advertisements. In very short time, many such Indian handset vendors created a brand value and captured significant market share in Indian handset market.
Earlier Chinese Smartphone brands were not very active in India and most of them were imitation of Nokia and Samsung phones. This no longer seems to be a case now. Today, India is ahead of America to become the second largest Smartphone market in the world after China. This started with the entry of Chinese handset companies in India around 2012 and onwards. Among these brands, there were names like, Xiamoi, Huawei, Vivo, Lenovo, Oppo, Gionee, Haier, G’five, OnePlus etc.
Today over 55% Smartphone market is owned by Chinese companies. Of these significant is the position of Xiaomi. The company does not have a traditional offline sales network unlike other Chinese brands; it does not market or advertise its products through conventional mediums. Today, it has around 26% market share which makes it the leading Smartphone vendor in the country.
Also, few would know that Oppo, OnePlus and Vivo mobile brands are of one Chinese company, BKB Electronics. It was founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Mr. Duan Yongping.
There is a dialogue in the movie Troy which is filmed on a character named Odysseus who says “This war will never be forgotten, nor will the heroes who fight in it.”
(Ajay Singh Rawat)
