Mid-range phones steal the brand show

Cutting-edge features have become the calling card of smartphones lower down the pecking order, fuelling demand and consumer interest

Saurav Bhatia is facing a problem of plenty. “My dad promised me a new smartphone,” he says. “He’s set me a budget of Rs 30,000. But I’m confused,” adds the 19-year-old from Delhi as he scans blogs and websites for the best within this range.

Bhatia is not alone to feel this way. The mid-range phone segment — handsets which cost between Rs 12,000 and Rs 35,000 — have seen the most action in terms of launches in the last few years. So Bhatia does have a lot to choose from brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Samsung among others.

But there’s another side to the story, one that is slowly beginning to unfold. Brands in the mid segment are now packing in features that were once visible in high-end or flagship phones only. This, in fact, has become their unique calling card, ensuring consumers get the best of both worlds. In other words, a brand which is affordable and also one which has best-in-class features.

For example, dual rear cameras or phones sporting two camera lenses at the back were limited to flagship devices till early this year. This is no longer the case now, with a number of mid-range phones — from the Motorola G5S Plus and Xiaomi Mi A1 to the OnePlus 5 and Huawei Honor 9 — all sporting this feature.

Take one more example. Edge-to-edge or bezel-less screens — basically phones that give the user an illusion of infinite display — is a new feature that will be offered by an iPhone, specifically, the iPhone X this year.

But to those who track the market closely, bezel-less screens are already visible in mid-range phones such as LG Q6 and G6, Vivo V7 Plus, Nubia Z11 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. And Samsung’s flagship from last year, the Galaxy S7 Edge, the brand which most experts say was responsible for first promoting infinity display, is already available online at prices a little over Rs 35,000.

The third part of the story is that price is a moving target and the biggest gainer of this trend is the mid segment. The price of flagship phones of most big brands such as Apple, Samsung and LG drop to mid-range levels within a year, giving price-sensitive consumers, whose budget is not beyond Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 a chance to sample these phones, experts said.

Amit Gujral, chief marketing officer, LG Electronics India, says, “Consumers have now become more price and value-conscious, looking for phones that are affordable, yet loaded with high-end features. This space has become very competitive with each brand coming out with products that address this need.”

Neil Shah, research director, devices and ecosystems, Counterpoint Research, says, “India has around 330 million smartphone users, of which around 50 per cent are going in for their second or  third phone. These users want advanced features and better capabilities from their phones at a price which is affordable.”

As Shah says most mid-range phones have seen a visible jump in performance because of a bump-up in processor speeds and Random Access Memory (RAM), the latter being storage for frequently used data. These phones automatically become a steal, he says.

Finbarr Moynihan, general manager, corporate sales (international) at chipset maker MediaTek says phone manufacturers are fulfiling the Indian consumer’s requirement of a “valuable premium experience”. He says that while there are “new features and additions” in the “super premium or high-end” segment (Rs 50,000 and above), the changes have slowed, while the mid-range segment is “catching up fast (and) closing the gap on some of these features”.

If one goes by phone launches in 2017, the mid-range segment far outstripped the flagship space in the domestic market, say experts. This helped India surpass the US as the world’s second-largest smartphone market for the first time in the July-September period, according to research agencies Counterpoint and Canalys. An industry player, who wished to remain anonymous, said with the advent of Reliance Jio’s affordable 4G plans and the shift towards data by most telecom players, sales in the mid-range segment have got a boost.

Also, since more  Indians are buying their phones online, many  mid-range players have concentrated their attention on this segment — with some handsets available exclusively online. However, companies such as Xiaomi and BBK, maker of brands Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus, are now looking to set up offline stores in India.

For Bhatia, the wait has just got  longer. After visiting innumerable stores, experience zones and websites, he has shortlisted the OnePlus 5 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. Since the latter is out of stock, he has settled for the OnePlus 5. But someone just mentioned about the Nokia 8 and the deals available on the iPhone 7 (after exchange). The guy is back to square one.