Indian smartphone makers to battle for sub-Rs 4,000 4G smartphone segment with new launches

Key highlights:

• Many smartphone manufacturers coming up with smartphones priced below Rs 4,000
• Airtel already in talks with Lava and Karbonn for Rs 2,500 4G smartphone
• Pre-demonetisation the sub-Rs 4,000 smartphone segment had about 18-20% market share of smartphones in India

With Reliance Jio launching the JioPhone, a feature phone with 4G capabilities, for just Rs 1,500, it has thrown the sub-Rs 4,000 smartphones category wide open. This is expected to increase the demand of feature phones during the year as other mobile phone manufacturers are expected to come with 4G-VoLTE feature phones in this price range, creating more demand for it.

Not to be outdone, many smartphone manufacturers coming up with smartphones priced in the below Rs 4,000 smartphone category, which is the entry level smartphone category.

Many of the Indian manufacturers are key players here and are looking to keep their dominance in this segment where they are still not overrun by Chinese smartphone makers.

Airtel already seems to be in advanced talks with Indian handset makers such as Lava and Karbonn to introduce a 4G smartphone priced at about Rs 2,500 before Diwali, according to an Economic Times report.

Others could be expected to follow and come out with 4G-enabled smartphones in the same price range soon.

Micromax too in April this year had launched the Bharat 2 4G-VoLTE smartphone for Rs 3,499. And Intex has several 4G smartphones such as the Intex Aqua Zenith for Rs 3,888, Intex Aqua Strong 5.1 Plus for Rs 3,999, Intex Aqua A4 for Rs 3,499 and Intex Aqua 4.0 4G for Rs 3,599.

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