Flipkart and Amazon are the two big players in the e-commerce market in India. Both the companies are always trying to one-up the other, either with new sales or advertisements. Flipkart recently launched the Billion Capture+ smartphone, an Android phone with a dual-camera setup priced at Rs. 10999. But, a couple of months before Flipkart’s move, Amazon launched two budget smartphones called Tenor E and Tenor G. New reports claim that Amazon will be launching its own smartphone in January next year under the brand name Tenor.
Manish Tiwary, VP at Amazon India told ET:
We leverage the customer data and feedback to understand the gaps in the selection, pricing and reach out to our vendors or OEMs to manufacture relevant products.
While Flipkart labels its Billion brand as ‘Made for India, in India’, Amazon labels its brand as ‘Crafted By Amazon’. Both the companies have launched products and product lines on their private labels. Amazon has a diverse portfolio under the ‘Amazon Basics’ moniker while Flipkart has Smart Buy, a brand for electronics and electronic accessories and MarQ for large appliances.
The budget smartphone industry in India is seeing an exponential rise right now and most of it is dominating by Chinese brands such Xiaomi and Honor. Experts believe that the private label market in India for smartphones is fairly nascent.
The overall mobiles and tablet market would be at $8.5-9 billion annualised run rate in terms of gross merchandise volume. The smartphones private label would be targeting the local, low-brand and mid-brand strength of smartphones which make up almost 20% of the market, thereby making it a $2-billion opportunity for these private labels.
While there are plenty of budget smartphones, a good phone at a competitive price will always receive the attention and persuade buyers to try out a new brand, that is how Xiaomi gained popularity in India. Will you buy an Azom-made phone if the specs are spectacular?
