“We Are A Premium Brand In Smartphone With Unique Arbo Technology”

In a candid interaction with PC Quest, Pankaj Rana, Business Head, Mobility Division, Panasonic India highlighting their new technology, channel strategies and growth for Indian Market.

- Ankit Parashar

The consolidation which is happening in the market, Is that affecting the handset business? 

Consolidation is in a way is good. As a telecom operator, I see consolidation is happening but user base is not shrinking. User base is increasing and moving towards high technologies. Jio has upgraded users to 2G, 3G to 4G and other operators also working on the VOLTE technology. Voice and Data cost is rapidly going down. So it’s good for brand like us and it’s a good sign for us.

As per Panasonic, what are the key developments that you see in smartphone side? 

In last 2 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, AC’s. 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.

Do you think when consumer comes to brand specific store, do they buy specific product like mobile phone? 

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 market.