India’s smartphone market is witnessing cut-throat competition, with multiple brands playing a pure price game by dropping prices.Â
The Chinese Lenovo-owned handset maker Motorola is planning to make India an exports hub, a top executive said, adding the company has shifted focus away from volumes to profitability due to the brutal competition in the local smartphone market.Â
The handsets maker expects to start shipments to countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific region by the end of this month, said Prashanth Mani, the country head for Lenovo’s mobile business group and managing director of Motorola Mobility.Â
The Lenovo-Motorola combine has increased manufacturing capacity to 12 million units, including exports, he said. Mani further commented that Motorola can always scale up the volume on the basis of the demand.Â
A stiff competition
The company is doing Printed Circuit Board assembly and is making batteries and chargers using the services of American multinational contract manufacturer Flex, previously known as Flextronics International. It is also in talks with other parts makers to further deepen the components ecosystem, he said.Â
Mani said India’s smartphone market is witnessing cut-throat competition, with multiple brands playing a pure price game by dropping prices.Â
Comparing the state of the handset industry with the telecom sector where mobile phone operators are bleeding due to stiff competition, he said that it’s like a zero-sum game, nobody wins in the industry.
The handset maker had a 2 per cent market share in 2018 for both Lenovo and Motorola brands when it shipped less than two lakh units a month. In comparison, market leader Xiaomi’s monthly shipments were almost 10 times higher, said Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint to Economic Times. The company is now focusing on the Rs 6,000-20,000 price segment, within which the Motorola brand will sharpen the focus on what it considers the value segment — handsets in the Rs 10,000-20,000 band.Â
