South Korean technology giant Samsung, the leader in India’s smartphone market, is now enthusiastic about expanding its foothold in the $1,000 (Rs 80,000) plus ultra-premium segment in the country. At present, Samsung commands a substantial 40 per cent share within this category for the first half of the year (H1), with aspirations to increase it to 50 per cent by December end.
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Aditya Babbar, Senior Director of Mobile Business at Samsung India, told Business Today, “Recently, our global president said that Samsung in India will aim for a 50 per cent market share in $1,000 plus category. I wanted to restate that we are very confident to meet this target with a robust pre booking numbers (for foldables) which we have seen and we will target 50per cent market share by the end of 2023 in $1,000 Plus segment.”
The recently launched fifth generation foldables – Galaxy ZFold 5 and Galaxy ZFlip 5 – are contributing to this target as Samsung had received 150,000 pre-bookings for its new foldables in India between July 27, 2023 and August 17, 2023.
The pre-bookings for ‘Made in India’ Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 in India were 1.5x of the previous generation of foldables, indicating strong demand and growing preferences for ultra-premium and foldable smartphones. And along with the strong demand for the new foldables from tier 1 and 2 cities (1.4x growth versus last year), the demand in tier 3 and 4 towns has also grown at the same pace for the company.
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To achieve this feat and make foldables mainstream, Samsung had increased its distribution footprint to 10,000 stores in India, up from 6,000 stores through which the previous generation of foldables were sold.
Also, to facilitate the purchase for these ultra-premium smartphones, Samsung worked on custom financing. Babbar explains, “When we started the affordability part, we saw that there is genuine consumer need. Earlier, for a foldable buyer, consumers were either able to trade-in their old device, or get a cashback or an easy monthly instalment. But we understood from our customers that somebody will like to give an old phone and get an EMI as well. And that’s where we work on a custom affordability. So, we worked on cashback plus upgrade, cashback plus EMI, and upgrades plus EMI.” This tailored financing option has empowered those with aspirations to acquire the newly launched Z Flip 5 by committing Rs 4,000 per month for a span of 24 months. Similarly, the Z Fold 5 is attainable at Rs 6,459 per month over 24 instalments. When coupled with cashbacks and trade-ins, the overall cost could potentially be further reduced.
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With over 150,000 consumers pre-booking for the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5, priced starting Rs 99,999 and Rs 1,54,999 respectively, Samsung is expecting foldables alone to contribute over 30% to its premium segment business this year.
