Micromax plans to re-enter Indian smartphone market

At one point, Micromax was the second largest smartphone company in Indian market and had surpassed Samsung smartphone sales in India. The entry of various Chinese brands, who were offering better features on lesser price, led to shift buyers choice towards these Chinese companies. Slowly Micromax started to lose its grip and at the end of Q2 2020, it had a mere 0.1% share in the smartphone market.

Recently Indian Government has introduced 3 new schemes to boost production in the electronics sector in India as a part of its Aatmanirbhar Bharat Plan. One of the schemes announced by the government is Production Linked Incentive (PLI) which gives an incentive between 4% to 6%, amounting to Rs 40,995 crores, to the companies for increasing their production capacity in the country. This scheme is valid for a period of five years and the incentives will be applicable starting August 1, 2020. Micromax and other companies such as Lava, Karbonn and Intex are said to have applied for availing the benefits under the PLI scheme.

“The scheme is very helpful. The incentive of 4-6 per cent in incremental sales makes us competitive in the market. Almost 90 per cent of the market today is for phones less than Rs 15,000 so that suits us too,”Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma says. “We have the infrastructure and manufacturing set up in place and over the next few years we will build the entire ecosystem of components within the country beginning with the software and then the hardware.”

“We want our old position back in this market and to do that we will launch multiple phones. We know the pulse of this market and understand the sweet spots. Our phones will come in all those sweet spots and we would look to disrupt the market,” says Sharma.

Analysts believe that this comeback from Micromax will benefit the company by capitalizing the anti-China sentiment in the country. Indian buyers are searching for a solid Indian company alternative that can shake Chinese companies throne. However this will be a tough road ahead for Micromax since they have to offer superior technological products with a balanced price and value ratio.

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