India is without an iota of doubt one of the make or break markets for smartphone manufactures. However India as a market has two key drivers of smartphone adoption: High price sensitiveness and ambitious early adopters who love to jump brands to get maximum bang for their bucks.
Chinese manufacturers have dominated the Indian smartphone scene recently while riding these two key drivers. Likes of Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO, Realme and others have been luring the Indian smartphone buyers by offering smartphones that seem to offer more for less.
HMD aka Nokia Mobile while did caught the imagination of buyers when it launched Nokia 5.1 Plus and Nokia 6.1 Plus in India. But it then lost the momentum a bit with the later offerings which didn’t really hit the Bulls eye with their value for money proposition.
But now the rivalry between India and China has thrown open a big opportunity for manufacturers like HMD. The existing anti-China sentiments may help Nokia Mobile reach a big user base if it moves fast enough and can present itself as a strong contender.
Recent offerings like Nokia 5.3 which have won lots of appreciations from reviewers show that HMD has finally learnt its lessons. It is a smartphone that offers a lot for the pricing it commands and should help Nokia Mobile in gaining momentum in India.
But, it can’t happen at a scale that is required for a market like India, if HMD moves slow or in other words won’t prioritize the Indian market. Currently, Nokia 5.3 is available in many of the markets worldwide but has given India a miss so far. HMD needs to certainly get its act together and react strongly to market sentiment prevalent in India so that it can give a viable option to Indian smartphone buyers, which they seek.
