Reported By:
| Edited By: Collin Furtado |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 23, 2018, 06:37 AM IST
Samsung India on Monday launched the third generation of the Galaxy A series A7 and A5 smartphones in India. Samsung Electronics India senior VP Asim Warsi, in conversation with Collin Furtado, spoke on the range of the new Galaxy A series, competition to the company and its marketing plans and distribution channels.
This is the 3rd generation of the Samsung Galaxy A series as our 2017 edition. This includes two devices: Galaxy A7 and A5. These devices are targeted at the young millennial population. They have some features and designs from our flagship devices. It has metal, glass and the 3D curvey glass and internal engine. Certain features being the IP68 protection from dust and water and many such features are high-end. These devices are particularly exciting for consumers who are aspiring for flagship phones or flagship like features, without having to pay for flagship prices. And in that sense these devices range only half of those phones: A7 at Rs 33,490 and A5 at Rs 28,990.
Consumers aspire to buy a flagship-like phone from Samsung, the A series addresses exactly that need for them. In our experience, we have seen consumers don't buy for price, they buy for value. Alos, consumers are buying into the total product and overall experience. So it is not just about the hardware and the aesthetics, but engine performance and features that come through. Whether it is in terms of our applications or services like MyGalaxy through which people customers can enjoy a platform for taxi, hotel bookings, travel bookings, device care and video games, it is an integrated platform. Not just this, consumers are using high-end premium devices. We provide great quality devices but in the event of any quality issues, a great after-sales service network is present across the country. We provide access to consumers at 3,000 after service contact points. Recently, we launched on-wheels service as well, under which 535 mobile service vans have been introduced. The consumers buying Samsung, are not just buying into a great experience, but also buying into great aspiration and peace of mind.
The A series is targeted at the millennials and to that extent we are going to communicate with them through all the media that is important to them. So you can expect to see a multimedia, multi-pronged campaign starting shortly for A series.
As a market leader over the years, we have been a full range player. Till date we continue to be committed to all consumer segments operating in India. So we not only have smartphones but we also sell feature phones, tablets, wearables and accessories. There are various segments and intervals in the market, ie based on consumer preference for feature and technology-based devices and that based on price points. So we are straddling end-to-end of the handset segments in the market. The C9 Pro is indeed a recent model that was launched keeping in mind consumers preference, increasingly moving towards larger displays.
Our effort will be to make A series available across all channels and touch points that are important to the consumers, particularly millennials. We find millennials going into brick and mortar retail environments like they also go into digital and e-commerce retail environments and thereby we are going to be available across all channels including our own company's Samsung Indian e-store.
We have been in the feature phones business since inception and we will continue doing that. We are a significant leader in the feature phones market and that presence will continue going forward as well.
Since these devices (A7 and A5) are targeted at millennials, it was a good opportunity for us to partner with MTV and none other than their own VJ's to live their vacation life using the A series and sharing their experiences with us. You could expect some stuff that we will be sharing more on how those millennials enjoyed using the A series.
