Samsung is making a strategic shift to further cement its position in the Indian smartphone market. Samsung India has said that it's going to keep up with the change in market dynamics and only launch 4G-enabled smartphones in the future. The company currently has a portfolio of 25 different handsets in India out of which most are 4G-enabled.
VP of the mobile business at Samsung India Electronics Manu Sharma pointed that nearly 80 percent of smartphone users in the country have shifted to 4G smartphones. “There is huge conversion happening from feature phones to smartphones at the entry level. This migration will continue. All the future launches, including entry-level segment, will have 4G facilities and we will sell 4G devices. But at the same time, there will be certain set of feature phones users because of price points, he added. The company expects to regain its market share in India on the back of new launches, it currently accounts for almost 49 percent of the country's smartphone market.
Sharma also had a few words to say about the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. He reiterated that customers in India would be given full refunds for imported Galaxy Note 7s and that all pre-orders for the flagship have been converted into orders for the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge now that the Note 7 is dead.
