Prabhu RamOnce the darling of Indian smartphone users, desi brands like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Intex and few others have nearly been decimated by affordable-yet-powerful devices from the Chinese vendors that have flooded both online and offline channels. In the 2013-2014 period, the domestic brands gained great traction and enjoyed 40-45 per cent market share — till the time Chinese behemoths entered the fray.
According to Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CyberMedia Research (CMR), the rate of change of smartphone technology is phenomenally swift and today, disruption is the rule of the game.
“Smartphones are becoming incredibly sophisticated with decreasing costs. With increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), it is imperative for smartphone brands to ramp up their internal research and development, and product engineering capabilities,” Ram told IANS.
“Unless the Indian vendors ramp up research and development, they will not succeed at the smartphone wars, ” added Ram.
