Panasonic Targets To Sell 3 Million Smartphones In India, This Year

Pankaj Rana, Business Head, Mobility Division, Panasonic India says leveraging channel strength for India smartphone market and Arbo –the intelligent virtual assistant in Panasonic phones will see them through the competitive smartphone market

- Ankit Parashar

Voice&Data: What are the key developments that you see in the India smartphone market?

Pankaj Rana: In last two years, Chinese brands are dominating in the Indian market both the offline and online market. They have really built up the channel as per as distribution network. This has given the advantage to the brand like Panasonic because we are in many other products like Refrigerator, TV, ACs. So, our distribution channel is very strong and we are riding on that channel strength. This is giving us the advantage and we are building our distribution network in a big way now. We are expanding our products mobile phones to the tier 2 and tier 3 cities and other Indian market.

Voice&Data: Do you think when consumer comes to brand specific store, do they buy a product like mobile phone?

Pankaj Rana: Mobile phone customer likes to visit the multi-brand outlets because they have different choices and other preferences. But when customer is coming to Panasonic exclusive showrooms they have some set preferences in their mind and most of the customer who are coming to our exclusive stores, they have some brand loyalty for Panasonic. Our brand showrooms are helping us in a way to sell those mobile in those markets.

Voice&Data: What are the challenges in terms of pricing you see in the market with other Chinese brands?