Smartphone companies need to rationalise marketing

In a recent user insights research, techARC had revealed many user preferences with respect to a Smartphone. As some of the recent developments in the Smartphone industry in India indicate the beginning of era of profitability rather than revenues, it becomes important to analyse if the Smartphone companies are aligning their resources with the user preferences.

Marketing is one of the important functions that helps not only in building the brand but also educates potential base about the offerings. However, many a times brands get swayed by the efficacy of marketing and spend disproportionately adversely affecting the profitability.

Specifically about Smartphones, is it too difficult to sell Smartphones in India that brands rely too much on marketing and see that as the only factor that impacts the decision making of a potential buyer. This is a million dollar question?

The recent techARC DIGIT (Digital India Granular Insights & Trends) report released however does not advocate for heavy marketing for Smartphones. Smartphone users across gender as well as in different price segments, did not believe that marketing was a critical factor for them to make a decision. The Smartphone buying in India has evolved a lot and users prefer to make rational decisions based on evaluation of technical parameters that define the performance as well as utility of the Smartphone that they are going to invest in.

Overall, Specifications, Brand and the Price are the top three deciding parameters across all major price segments. It is on these three parameters that users make their choices.

Smartphone brands shall have to rejig their marketing strategy that helps in creating the brand equity and reputation than just resulting in hype or bubble, which may momentarily spike the sales.

For most of the Smartphone brands, the journey started in India post 2014, and all of them shall be entering their 5th year. In majority of the businesses 5th year is one of the major milestones when investors look for actual growth indicators and decide about the next infusion of money that helps in growth and scale up.

The recent shakeups are early warning indicators for the rest of the brands to rationalise their marketing spend and invest more in parameters that have greater bearing on the buying decision of users, whose awareness level about Smartphones has considerably increased in the past 3-4 years.