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Mobile Manufacturers in rural India
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Mobile manufactures like Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung etc. have started to reach out to the Indian villagers trough Mandi’s, Haats (unregulated markets) etc as their on-ground activity to attract the villagers towards their handsets.
I think it’s about time they did so, considering 70% of the Indian population are from the rural areas. The rural market is a virgin territory that has not been completely explored.
The mobile penetration in the rural market is only 3% which is very small amount considering 70% of the total Indian population live in rural areas According to industry estimates, the rural markets contribute about 5% of the national GSM handset sales. But this is expected to rise to 25-30% by 2009. So it doesn’t come to me as a surprise that big phone vendors are looking at the Indian rural market.
Motorola has already launched Motofone catering to the rural market.
It would also provide local language voice prompts, allowing Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali to be compatible on the phone.
the GSM version of the black and white handset would be available coupled with an offer from BSNL, all for Rs.1,650 only.
Motorola, has already ensured distribution tie-ups with rural retail chains - ITC’s e-choupal, DCM’s Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar and Godrej Agrove making it easily available to the end user.
The new user will also get free talk-time worth Rs.150 every month, for the next three years as part of the offer. Says Motorola India, Director-Marketing, Lloyd Mathias,
“The handset is made with an intention to target the rural market in the country, specifically the first-time users.” The launch is expected to strengthen the company’s position compared to its Finnish counterpart, Nokia, in India.
Companies like Nokia and LG run vans trough villages demonstrating and selling the product. (excellent idea)
Nokia India director (marketing) Devinder Kishore said: “We will finalise the model in six months since a one size fits all strategy will not work in the villages. The aim is to deliver an experience to consumers and not just plain vanilla sales. We are also investing on training the front-end sales people.”
Nokia is also undertaking extensive below-the-line branding activity in village mandis. About 50% of its marketing budget is for such activities. “Through the mandi initiative, we will reach out to farmers to show them how a mobile phone can help them access best price for their farm produce by using the GPRS services,”
LG sells its handsets in 5,000 village haats through make-shift tents. “We are also going to launch a sub-Rs 2,000 colour handset in three months time which will further push sales. We are also running TV campaigns through local cable channels in regional dialect,” said HS Bhatia, head (GSM), LG Electronics India.
Samsung is targeting rural markets where there is a significant demand for colour handset. “In line with our global strategy, we are positioning ourselves as a premium brand even in rural India,” said Samsung Telecommunications India head (marketing)Asim Warsi.
While the phone vendors expect higher volume sales, they feel value wise the rural market’s contribution will still be low. “While the average sale price of GSM phones in the urban market is Rs 3,500, it is about Rs 2,000 in the rural market. It will take two years for this to rise since consumers will take time to upgrade to feature-rich colour phones,” Mr Bhatia said.
As of now infrastructure seems to be the only cause of concern as reaching out to such a large audience is a mammoth task.
To sum it all up, the Indian rural market is very Price conscious and is brand loyal (at least initially to the first few brands that are able to connect with the user). The product should be able to help them or in any way increase productivity for the users. They prefer simple devices that are easy to operate and should preferably be in their local language as it is big barrier in our country.
Credit: Economic Times
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This move is very rational.My known paradigm is Nokia which setup their manufacturing plant say an year back in a rural area "sri perambadur" in tamil nadu.
In a country like India, where rural population is predominanatly major, mobile company must shape to attract masses.