After looking for so long at Samsung making innovation in global smartphone market by offering cheap and feature rich smartphones that ended the monopoly of companies like Nokia and BlackBerry into the phone market globally, the new guardian of Nokia devices, HMD Global is again looking at fledgling Reliance Jio which is disrupting status quo in Indian telecom sector by its cheap data services and devices.
When asked by the business daily ET about the possibility of company’s entering into India’s 4G feature phone segment which is upbeat due to launch of specs rich 4G feature JioPhone, company executive said that HMD Global is watching impact of the Jio Phone on the market and then take a decision on bringing its own devices. “We are watching how this materialises. If we see a viable business proposition, we will definitely consider it and participate,” said Ajey Mehta, India VP for HMD Global to ET.
It is not only HMD Global that is mulling to foray into 4G feature phone segments. Recently it was reported that Bharti Airtel will soon launch its own cheap 4G smartphones in the market. Continuing with its efforts to regain lost market and loyalty in different geographies, HMD Global, has recently upgraded Nokia 2G 3310 to a 3G version of Nokia 3310 in some markets, but even that is yet to come to India.
According to a report in Counterpoint Research, almost 2.5 crore 4G enabled feature phones will be shipped by the end of 2017. Another report in 2016 said that 120 million smartphones were sold in India. This means India is currently a huge market, and cheap mobiles with good performance have huge potential. This is evident from the fact that even Airtel is planning to come up with a Rs 2,000 smartphone.
