Smartphones maker Samsung India, which came down to number three after Vivo and Xiaomi in the January-March quarter this year in volumes, is expecting to do better with new product launches in the coming months, especially with the festive season kicking off soon, a top official said.
“We see a strong trajectory. The FE series, we’ve re-energised the flagship with the entry flagship S23 FE Series. We see consumers upgrading into the S and the foldables from the FE Series because they are seeing the Galaxy artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem available to a certain level in the S23 so the UI experience is also moving up. We are seeing a strong upgradation there,” Raju Pullan, Senior Vice President and Head of MX Business, Samsung India, told businessline.
According to Counterpoint Research, Samsung’s market share fell down to 17.5 per cent in January-March quarter this year on volume wise, after Xiaomi which had a market share of 18.8 per cent. Vivo was the number one player with a market share 19.2 per cent during the quarter.
However, value wise, Samsung led the market with 25 per cent share, driven by its leading position in the ₹20,000 plus segment. It was attributed because of stronger mix of newly launched Galaxy S24 series due to its features such as GenAI, Counterpoint had said. Apple and Vivo followed with 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively in terms of the value.
Samsung that launched foldable products last week also said that it working on a lot of experience for the consumers through its Galaxy AI, and hence expects to get better market share also from the second half of this year.
The company has a market share of around 80 per cent in the foldable devices right now, and as it launches new products, it expects to continue with the leadership position, Pullan said. It launched the new Flip Z6 that starts at ₹.1.10 lakh and Z Fold 6 that starts at ₹1.65 lakh. It had also launched the new Ultra watch starting at ₹59,999.
“There’s a lot of work to be done. For example, how do we reach AI to the consumer, the usability (of foldables) to the consumer...it’s one of the fastest growing categories for us in the premium segment. In the foldable segment, in spite of competition, our shares are around 80 per cent, and with these (new launches) path breaking foldables, we expect to consolidate our leadership position in India,” he said.
He said the company’s biggest investment will be to take the Galaxy AI closer to consumers by getting them to experience the use cases for which it is investing in master classes across the top retail stores in the country and the Samsung exclusive stores where consumers can go for the Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 experience.
“We’ve seen that consumers who tend to be in the foldables form factor, they are so used to the convenience of the productivity...now it’s all about productivity and AI,” Pullan said.
According to analysts, the foldable smartphone market has around 1.50 lakh units, sold in the first half of this calendar year (January-June).