From China, With Love

Chinese smartphones offering the price-conscious India a fascinating new range of products right now

- Arushi Bedi

They are sleek, stylish, they have the works, they come cheap and they are Chinese-made. Yes, the Chinese mobile phones are sweeping the Indian shores and have become a rage with youngsters and adults alike. The latest thing people want to flaunt, in the last 6-12 months, Chinese phones have clocked more numbers than established brands like Samsung, Motorola and Apple and are fast becoming the most preferred device of young India.

According to data by Counterpoint Research, Chinese phones currently have a market share of about 22 per cent—a 100 per cent increase from last year. Korean phones, such as Samsung and LG, once the largest players in India, have seen a reduction in sales from 25 per cent to 20 per cent in the last one year. “Chinese phones offer cheaper prices with competitive features, making them an obvious choice,” says Kuldeep Chengappa, a scientist in Bangalore. Such brands have limited playing field only in the mid-range of around Rs 10,000.

The aspirational new-age Indian youth has always been technologically driven and the smartphone has now become not only something to send and receive a call on but a way of life. India is now the second-largest growing smartphone market in the world with more than 220 million smartphone users, a figure only exceeded by China. Chinese smartphones have managed to capture the imagination of youngsters with their flexibility in software and cheaper prices—a combination that was earlier unavailable for (mostly price-conscious) Indians.