Oppo to increase India marketing budget to drive sales; to stay away from premium segment
Oppo is now planning to ramp up its marketing efforts with an increased budget and will come up with various campaigns around the Asia Cup, Diwali season and Christmas to drive sales in India, which is among the largest smartphone markets globally.
“India consumption level is growing but it has not met our expectations as compared to other markets We need more time. We are not aggressively jumping into to premium segment of Rs 30,000 and above. That's not realistic for us. We would continue to be between Rs 15,000-Rs 25,000 category,” Will Yang, Brand Director, Oppo India, told ET.
“We found from our branding research that Indian consumers think that camera is the only strength that Oppo has. This has been the biggest challenge from the brand perspective for us. The new phone launch is important to change that perception,” Yang added.
The Chinese handset maker will continue its operations through the offline channel in the near-term to drive sales and said that in-depth partnerships with e-commerce players are not a priority. “The e-commerce opportunity is huge in India and is growing rapidly, and we don’t want to miss out on this platform. However, offline will remain to the main channel for Oppo,” the executive said.Oppo has lost significant market share in the last one year to Xiaomi and Huawei in India. It had 5.6% smartphone share in the first quarter of 2018, down from 9.9% share during a year earlier period, according to Counterpoint research. Xiaomi maintained its lead in Q1 with 31.1% market share followed by Samsung (26.2%) and vivo (5.8%).
Samsung, OnePlus, and Apple are the top three players in that order in the premium segment, as per Counterpoint data, with Google having a presence, which though is negligible in terms of market share. The segment premium segment (Rs 30,000 and above) remained flat year-on-year during Q1.
According to analysts, the premium category in India is estimated to account for less than 5% of the market in terms of shipment, but about 25% by value.
On lost market share, Yang said that the market share is one of the element of consideration but not the priority for Oppo currently.
“We have deliberately stayed away from sub-Rs 10,000 category as part of our product strategy. We are currently not focused on sales performance, rather working on providing better smartphone innovation beyond the camera,” he added.
Oppo is banking big on its next flagship smartphone under the mid-segment, which it expects will bring back growth to the brand in India. “Find X is important from a branding perspective but next product is important to drive sales. We expect that product to bring energy back to Oppo,” Yang said.
Oppo’s new manufacturing facility in Greater Noida is expected to come into operations in the second half of 2019. “We are setting up a bigger unit with Rs 2000 crore investment. It's under construction. We plan to shift to the bigger factory by next year,” Yang said.
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