Why Indian Smartphone Brands Have Failed.

Home to over 1.4 Billion people, over 600 million of the total population of India uses smartphones, which is the second most in the world, exceeded only by China. With the huge smartphone market and the government encouraging the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, it is the perfect scenario for Indian smartphone brands to seize control over the market. But is this the case though?

Source: Internet

The top 5 highest-selling smartphone brands in India in 2023 were%20growth%20in%20Q4%202023.):

Samsung: South Korean
Vivo: Chinese
Xiaomi: Chinese
Realme: Chinese
Oppo: Chinese

There is not a single Indian brand in the top 5, heck, even the top 10. But why? Why haven’t any Indian smartphone brands taken the initiative to get into these rankings? Well, there were three of them. Lava, Karbonn and Micromax. If you're Indian, I'm sure you have heard of them. Around 2014, Micromax, Karbonn, and Lava were one of the highest-selling smartphone brands in India. But soon, the Chinese smartphone brands arrived in India and just took the Indian smartphone market by storm. Brands like Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Realme target the budget smartphone range, as it is in this range where most smartphones are sold. They offered many features at low prices which took most of the attention of the people and these brands immediately made an impact, as more and more people started buying the Chinese smartphones due to their low pricing. And this is where Indian smartphone brands fell behind. They just couldn't keep up with the Chinese smartphone brands.

Another big reason is that most of the Indian smartphone brands made phones only for the budget segment, whereas the Chinese smartphone brands offered more dynamic choices to the users. Samsung was already offering this, which is also why it has been the highest-selling smartphone brand in India for so many years. The Chinese brands also did the same which also played a huge role in their success over the smartphone market in India.

Indian smartphone brands just lacked innovation. Which is a major reason why Indian smartphone brands fell off so hard. I think it was a big miss, as the smartphone market is so huge. However, everything is not over yet, if only Indian brands could pull out something exceptional. However the chances are very slim, and the future for Indian smartphone brands still seems dark.