Chinese brands sold Rs 500 bn worth of smartphones in India in FY18

As per Counterpoint Research's latest analysis on the important Indian smartphone market, the premium smartphone segment (>Rs. 30,000) shipments reached an all-time third quarter peak

 

Business News: Chinese smartphone brands account for over Rs 500 billion worth of purchases in the Indian market in FY18 so far, double of the figure that they logged last year according to a Counterpoint report quoted by the Economic Times.

Indian smartphone market, the premium smartphone segment (>Rs. 30,000) shipments reached an all-time third-quarter peak during Q3 2018 as attractive offers pushed down the cost of ownership for a premium smartphone in India in the recent past.

Typical offers include trade-ins and buybacks, monthly 0% EMI (monthly instalment plans) and instant cashbacks.

These offers strongly appeal to large sections of the population, especially the youth, that are gaining their footing financially and growing into power smartphone users. Furthermore, the features in premium segment smartphones such as full-screen displays, biometric security, dual-cameras, faster processor and support for artificial intelligence have acted as a catalyst for consumers looking to upgrade from a mid-range smartphone.

Smartphone sales in India grew five per cent to an all-time high of 44 million units in the September quarter, driven by strong shipments by handset vendors ahead of the festive season, according to a report by Counterpoint Research.

In the reported quarter, smartphone segment contributed to half of the total handset market (88 million) with brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo and Oppo recording their individual highest-ever shipments in a single quarter, it said. The shipments grew 24 per cent on sequential basis.

↓↓↓ Read the full Report here ↓↓↓

Smartphone Sales in India

---

News Source: BS & Business Standard

Not just Hinglish: Businesses eyeing India market must ace these languages

Amazon's Alexa speaker can handle requests like, 'Add jeera, atta, haldi to my shopping list', reports Tech in Asia

 

 

If you’re in India, you are likely to get an overdose of the word “only.” It pops up everywhere, as in “I’m here only.” There are other Indianisms, “like this only.” Visitors to India can find it quaint or exasperating, depending on the situation. If you’ve had enough of this already, you can try a reverse Indianism too – “Don’t eat my head.”

The problem of deciphering Indian English isn’t confined to visitors. In the digital world, machines have to deal with it as well. Amazon’s Alexa speaker can handle requests like, “Please add jeera, atta, and haldi to my shopping list.”

Google has a Hinglish-speaking virtual assistant, although it has yet to launch Google Home speakers in India. Apple wants Siri to get the cultural nuances of dialog in India, and has a Hinglish keyboard for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.

So how can a business overcome multiple language barriers to target these hundreds of millions of non-English-speaking or even Hinglish-speaking consumers? One strategy is to zero in on the most used Indian languages.

As many as 90 per cent of the 700 million literates in India can read and write at least one of India’s 12 major local languages. And among those, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, and Bengali are the top five Indian languages that any business or app developer localizing digital products for the Indian market should not ignore, according to the first Digital Indian Language report (PDF) published by Reverie Language Technologies.

These five regional languages “represent more than 75 per cent of the total digitally engaged audience who prefer to communicate in their native languages,” Reverie notes. On the other end are Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Nepali, Sanskrit, and Santhali – which Reverie calls “digitally endangered languages that would need support from handset manufactures and state governments to preserve for future generations.”

Click here to Read → Business News

ICICI Pru's Rs 6,000 crore IPO to open tomorrow

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance's IPO, worth up to Rs 6,057 crore and biggest for Indian markets in about six years, will hit the capital market on Monday (tomorrow).

The first public offer by an insurer in Indian market would open for bidding on September 19 and is scheduled to close on September 21, during which the stock would be offered in a price band of Rs 300-334 per share.

Ahead of the IPO, ICICI Prudential has allocated over 4.89 crore shares at Rs 334, the top-end of the price band, aggregating Rs 1,635.33 crore to a clutch of anchor investors from India and abroad.

It marks one of the biggest anchor investor placements in the Indian IPO market. Among the 40-odd anchor investors are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Nomura, Government of Singapore, UTI MF, Russell Investment, GMO Emerging, SBI MF, Tata MF, HDFC Standard Life, Reliance, Birla Sun Life, Kotak Mahindra, IDFC,National Pension Service Managed By Oaktree Capital Management L P and The Boeing Company Employee Retirement Plans Master Trust.

The public offer comprises of up to 18,13,41,058 equity shares of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, including a reservation of up to 1,81,34,105 equity shares(10% of the offer) for the shareholders of  read full story

Related Stories:

 ICICI Pru: Good record, growth prospects

 Whatever we do, we do in an arm's-length relationship: Chanda Kochhar

 ICICI Pru Life IPO signals jump in valuations

 ICICI Pru Life files for India's biggest IPO in six years