- Rajen Vagadia, president, Qualcomm India was quoted saying that the drop in handset prices in India is the fastest
- A recent report by Counterpoint stated that India had surpassed the USA in terms of smartphone shipments
Qualcomm, a supplier of chips used in headphones, stated that smartphone prices will continue to dip in India. The original report, published by the Economic Times, also states that this would be possible because of the brands trying to drive volumes through economies of scale.
The report quoted Rajen Vagadia, president, Qualcomm India saying that smartphones powered by Qualcomm’s 600-series chipswere down to around Rs 10,000. Earlier, these prices used to be around Rs 15,000.
Services to drive revenues
Vagadia, as per the report, also mentioned that at some point, services will drive revenues. Carriers and handset brands, as per him, will look beyond offering services outside the phone. This might be done to see how to monetise beyond a point.
Interestingly, the likes of Xiaomi and Realme have recently started offering help around securing loans in India. While Xiaomi has launched an app that can help individuals secure personal loans, Realme India is doing it for small and medium enterprises as well.
“Brands understand that staying at the top now requires to go beyond the conventional methods of doing business. Be it a brand from China, India, Japan or Korea, consumers now prefer ones that value their experience. This battle of value-added services is going to get stiffer in the future. Moreover, we might see more brands following Xiaomi and Samsung suite in 2020,”stated Himanshu Jain, senior analyst, International Data Corporation (IDC), India, had told EFY recently.
“Xiaomi said that it has already disbursed about Rs 28 crore (280 million) in the pilot phase of launch of Mi credit. Taking average loan size as Rs 50,000 and average processing or file fee as Rs 600, the total amounts figures up to something that a new brand does business for a complete year,” Faisal Kawoosa, founder and lead analyst, Techarc had told EFY recently.
