Not smartphones, Indian consumers may pay more for AI features in laptops

While smartphone brands are struggling to find consumers for their new rollouts with AI features, experts indicate that AI-backed laptops have a wider use case and, hence, may open up the market

India’s top smartphone brands — Apple, Samsung, Google Pixel, Oppo, and Xiaomi — have introduced AI-powered features over the past year and a half. Google launched Gemini, Samsung unveiled Galaxy AI, and Apple released Apple Intelligence. Oppo and Xiaomi, based in China, are also integrating similar AI technologies into their devices.

Yet, the five best-selling brands – which control over 45 per cent of India’s $40 billion smartphone market – are struggling to find consumers for their AI-backed devices, according to a Mint report. This is despite a large young population of smartphone users in India who agree that AI is the next big thing.

 

In this context, industry observers have argued that while consumers may not be willing to shell out extra bucks on AI features in smartphones, AI-enabled laptops may hold the key to opening up the market. They told Mint that laptops, which offer higher computing power compared to smartphones, have a greater productivity use case.

According to experts, laptops loaded with AI features are likely to lead adoption as professionals from all verticals – ranging from coders to content creators – use AI tools on laptops for heavy tasks. This is evident, they say, as AI features in smartphones – like live transcription, translation, photo, and audio editing – are not attracting more customers as expected.

The laptop market is growing steadily in India. As per Mint research, brands shipped around 10 million laptops to retailers in India last year, amounting to approximately $5.5 billion in revenue. If experts’ projections are to be believed, AI features will take the laptop market to $6.5 billion in revenue this year.

Consumers’ inclination towards laptops with AI features is likely to become apparent in the next two financial quarters, added industry experts. Meanwhile, the smartphone market is projected to witness a mid-single digit growth this year.