How Samsung beats the other phone handsets !!!

Until as recently as 2008, Nokia had an invincible lock on the mobile phone market in India. The Finnish giant was by far the strongest Richmond in the field, controlling a humongous 75% of the Indian mobile handset market by volume. But over the next couple of years, even as the handset market was going through a watershed technological change and churn, Nokia made the mistake of taking its eyes off the emerging market trends and has had to pay a heavy price for the lapse. By the time it realised its mistake, the South Korean major Samsung had already taken the market by storm, introducing a whole new dynamic to the Indian mobile phone market: smartphones, which have operating systems just like PCs (with Android being the most popular). From the staggering peak of its market leadership four years ago, Nokia has seen fall with its current market share declining to 31%. In comparison, Samsung’s share in the volume game has moved up from 5% to 28% over the past two years alone, according to a research report by Cyber Media.

The cardinal sin Nokia made was to forget that technology is ephemeral in nature. So when smartphones became the hottest flavour in the handset business, Nokia was caught napping. Its Symbian platform looked antediluvian and anachronistic in comparison to Samsung’s offerings on Google’s Android. Unlike Nokia, Samsung had abandoned the Symbian OS early on and succeeded in developing leading-edge handsets using multiple operating systems. At the same time, it developed its own operating system – called Bada – to push smartphones into the mid-market and cannibalize the feature-phone segment. It was also quick to launch several attractive models on Google’s Android platform, which helped it gain global market leadership in the smartphone segment.

Samsung’s strategy has been simple – waiting for the right moment to open up in the market and quickly moving in to seize the opportunity with both hands. Experts say Samsung’s success has come from spotting technology trends in the initial stages, in areas where the growth is rapid and development capital-intensive. It has invested heavily in such areas to make it harder for rivals to keep up.

In India, Samsung has succeeded by becoming a full range smart- phone player. It has 19 smartphone models available across varied OS platforms – across Android, Windows and Bada. The company has flooded the market with phones at every price point conceivable, making it easier for aspiring young consumers to jump to their next level of technology experience, as per their needs and affordability. It has priced its products extremely competitively, thus outsmarting the competition. It introduced multiple smartphones at quick intervals and varying price-points.So we have a Samsung Star and Champ models starting around Rs.6,000 to S3 and Note at Rs.35,000. Samsung offers consumers choices and value for money. It ensures a smooth path for consumers to jump to the next level of smartphones by having products at almost every price point.
The company hasn’t ignored the feature phone category, which has helped it increase its penetration and build brand awareness in tier 2 and tier 3 towns among consumers, who would become future smartphone users.
Samsung has ensured that the brand enjoys strong visibility albeit with lesser number of outlets. With 100,000 distribution centres that cover most parts of the country, Samsung is focused on better controlo n service quality and maintaining a ‘premium brand’ edge over Nokia. So even in smaller cities it runs better designed and illuminated outlets.
To cement its long-term trust and relationship with consumers, the company has invested heavily in setting upa strong after-sales service network with trained professionals and responsive call centers  which ensure customers have a good experience.These measures have helped Samsung gain strong ‘word of mouth’ publicity and get repeat buys from older customers, who feel the brand cares for them.

So this is how Samsung is today ruling the phone handset category !!!!