What Indian phone 'makers'? They don't make anything. And what Indian 'ecosystem'? There is no such thing as an Indian ecosystem. They are all trading companies that buy Chinese phones off the shelf and rebrand them. As with any Indian traders, they are incredibly cheap and unscrupulous. They buy the cheapest possible Chinese phones, even ones that don't pass quality controls. The competition between Indian traders and African traders are fierce: both are bottom feeders with comparable purchasing power.
https://www.ft.com/content/6cb6405c-2276-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16
India’s phonemakers cry foul on Chinese rivals
Homegrown companies call for ‘antidumping’ duties as market share leaps towards 50%
The Jio LYF phone is an Indian handset in a market experiencing intense Chinese competition © Reuters
India’s smartphone makers are seeking government action after a dramatic loss of market share to deep-pocketed Chinese rivals, who have been taking the country’s mobile market by storm with aggressive pricing and marketing campaigns.
Homegrown companies such as Micromax and Intex had grown to dominate the Indian mobile market, building strong local brands while relying heavily on product designers and component suppliers in China.
But over the past year, Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo have launched an intense assault on India, where their market share grew to 46 per cent in the final quarter of 2016 from 14 per cent a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. Indian brands’ share fell from 54 per cent to 20 per cent during the same period.
“The government should be more supportive of their people,” Narendra Bansal, founder of Intex Technologies, the second-biggest Indian smartphone brand by sales, told the Financial Times. “Every child needs hand-holding by their parents.”
Mr Bansal called for “anti-dumping duties” on Chinese handsets, similar to those imposed on low-priced steel imports from the country. He argued that supplementary levies could be imposed even for handsets assembled by Chinese companies in India, to compensate for the financial support that those groups have received from Beijing.
Industry leaders have met government officials in recent weeks to outline their concerns, according to one person with direct knowledge of the talks.
Beyond pricing, executives are alarmed by the huge scale of an ongoing Chinese advertising drive: on billboards across the country, Bollywood heart-throb Deepika Padukone can be seen clutching an Oppo handset, while Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli gazes at a phone from Shenzhen-based Gionee.
The Chinese companies’ focus on India reflects the huge recent growth of its smartphone market. Last year, 109m smartphones were shipped in the country, according to IDC, well more than double the number three years before.
“Their spending is too high,” said Pradeep Jain, founder of Karbonn Mobile, which once ranked third in the Indian market but, like other local brands, has now dropped out of the top five. “The government should do something otherwise it’s a loss for industry, and a loss for the government also.”
The appeals from hardware companies come after the founders of ride-hailing app Ola and online marketplace Flipkart both called in recent months for government support in their respective battles with Uber and Amazon. Such demands have met with little response from a government that has been keen to improve India’s reputation as a destination for foreign investment.
“The China ecosystem historically came up because of a lot of subsidies and incentives from the Chinese government,” said Shubhajit Sen, chief marketing officer at Micromax, the biggest Indian phonemaker by sales.
While the Indian government could not replicate this, he argued that it should “reduce the gap between the China ecosystem and the Indian ecosystem”, through steep levies on imported smartphones and components.
But Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint, said that Chinese companies have sharply increased their local assembly of phones in India. This now accounts for about 75 per cent of the handsets they sell in the country, he estimated — roughly the same as for the Indian brands, meaning that any crackdown on imports would hit the latter just as hard as their better-funded Chinese rivals.
“Actually the Indian brands would be shooting themselves in the feet,” he said.
https://www.ft.com/content/6cb6405c-2276-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16
India’s phonemakers cry foul on Chinese rivals
Homegrown companies call for ‘antidumping’ duties as market share leaps towards 50%
The Jio LYF phone is an Indian handset in a market experiencing intense Chinese competition © Reuters
India’s smartphone makers are seeking government action after a dramatic loss of market share to deep-pocketed Chinese rivals, who have been taking the country’s mobile market by storm with aggressive pricing and marketing campaigns.
Homegrown companies such as Micromax and Intex had grown to dominate the Indian mobile market, building strong local brands while relying heavily on product designers and component suppliers in China.
But over the past year, Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo have launched an intense assault on India, where their market share grew to 46 per cent in the final quarter of 2016 from 14 per cent a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. Indian brands’ share fell from 54 per cent to 20 per cent during the same period.
“The government should be more supportive of their people,” Narendra Bansal, founder of Intex Technologies, the second-biggest Indian smartphone brand by sales, told the Financial Times. “Every child needs hand-holding by their parents.”
Mr Bansal called for “anti-dumping duties” on Chinese handsets, similar to those imposed on low-priced steel imports from the country. He argued that supplementary levies could be imposed even for handsets assembled by Chinese companies in India, to compensate for the financial support that those groups have received from Beijing.
Industry leaders have met government officials in recent weeks to outline their concerns, according to one person with direct knowledge of the talks.
Beyond pricing, executives are alarmed by the huge scale of an ongoing Chinese advertising drive: on billboards across the country, Bollywood heart-throb Deepika Padukone can be seen clutching an Oppo handset, while Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli gazes at a phone from Shenzhen-based Gionee.
The Chinese companies’ focus on India reflects the huge recent growth of its smartphone market. Last year, 109m smartphones were shipped in the country, according to IDC, well more than double the number three years before.
“Their spending is too high,” said Pradeep Jain, founder of Karbonn Mobile, which once ranked third in the Indian market but, like other local brands, has now dropped out of the top five. “The government should do something otherwise it’s a loss for industry, and a loss for the government also.”
The appeals from hardware companies come after the founders of ride-hailing app Ola and online marketplace Flipkart both called in recent months for government support in their respective battles with Uber and Amazon. Such demands have met with little response from a government that has been keen to improve India’s reputation as a destination for foreign investment.
“The China ecosystem historically came up because of a lot of subsidies and incentives from the Chinese government,” said Shubhajit Sen, chief marketing officer at Micromax, the biggest Indian phonemaker by sales.
While the Indian government could not replicate this, he argued that it should “reduce the gap between the China ecosystem and the Indian ecosystem”, through steep levies on imported smartphones and components.
But Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint, said that Chinese companies have sharply increased their local assembly of phones in India. This now accounts for about 75 per cent of the handsets they sell in the country, he estimated — roughly the same as for the Indian brands, meaning that any crackdown on imports would hit the latter just as hard as their better-funded Chinese rivals.
“Actually the Indian brands would be shooting themselves in the feet,” he said.
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