Samsung led the 5G smartphone market in India last year, and the company recently said it wants to “democratize 5G in India” in 2023. It wishes to make 5G smartphones available to everyone, but even so, Samsung won't stop offering 4G smartphones in the budget segment.
The company's Head of Product & Marketing in India, Aditya Babbar, recently confirmed that the Galaxy A was the best-selling smartphone series in India in 2022, with over 62 million customers under its belt. Samsung overtook Xiaomi in Q4 2022 to become the largest smartphone OEM in the country.
It's an interesting development, considering that the company also released Galaxy M and Galaxy F devices, with the latter series being exclusive to India. Despite these efforts, it looks like the Galaxy A is the preferred lineup among budget customers in India, which is why Samsung will focus more on it.
The Senior Director added that Samsung wants to stay at the top of the list in 2023. And to achieve this, the company is betting on 5G, aiming for 75% of its smartphone business in India to be derived from 5G devices.
4G Galaxy smartphones aren't going anywhere for the time being
Samsung already released the Galaxy A14 5G and A23 5G in India earlier this month, and Aditya Babbar says that Samsung will continue bringing more 5G phones to India this year. (via India Today)
Even so, Samsung is not giving up on the 4G segment. It's difficult for companies to bring 5G to the INR 10,000 price segment, and Samsung wants to “continue to innovate at every price point and evolve as the market grows.” With that in mind, 4G smartphones are here to stay. At least until 5G technology becomes more affordable.
The Galaxy A14 5G went on sale in India recently for the starting price of INR 16,499 ($202). Samsung also released the Galaxy A23 5G for INR 22,999 ($282) and up.
