Prabhu RamTightening of the FDI policy in ecommerce could help Samsung wrest India’s top smartphone slot from Xiaomi because the South Korean company has a wider offline retail presence than its Chinese rival, which needs to scale up its brick-and-mortar store play rapidly.
Besides increasing the rivalry between the top two smartphone companies, Indian handset makers Lava and Micromax, which have traditionally been strong offline and missed most of the online play, could now get a chance to regain some of their lost share.
Prabhu Ram, head of CyberMedia Research’s industry intelligence group, said Indian smartphone companies could get a lifeline only if they are able to “potentially refocus, rebuild and reclaim their past channel strengths, and back it up with energy and new creative strategies… Having said that, this remains a big ‘IF.’”
