Moving on, apart from the HTC Magic, the company is currently offering 11 handset devices (10 GSM and 1 CDMA) that fall in the price range of Rs.10,000 to Rs.42,000 and is now looking to move beyond just touchscreens. “HTC has already become synonymous with touch phones and large screens in the Indian market and from now on our focus would be to go beyond the same,” explains Ajay Sharma, Country Manager, HTC India. As far as the company’s belief runs, it is only through provision of some differentiating and interesting factor (like a feature which enables the user to switch off the phone’s ringer by just turning the phone upside down) that consumers in the country can actually be attracted; ‘differentiation’ is the word here!
Innovation lies at the heart of HTC, and as company officials claim, 25% of the total workforce is engaged in R&D. Though the company has managed to capture a sizeable presence in India, yet in terms of brand power, it has to make bigger and better marketing efforts, especially when the market has other well-established brands that had moved in much earlier than HTC. Another hurdle for HTC is that, given the fact that it operates in the price points above Rs.10,000, it is clearly gunning the upper crust of the market. Today, the only other player that operates in just the plus Rs.10,000 segment is Blackberry, but its brand is much more recognised and has thus already created a cult following amongst its target group. As Rajeev Makhani, a mobile handset expert and host of Gadget guru at NDTV states, “Blackberry has been widely accepted in the corporate circle, who have actually started a culture of Blackberries. In comparison to that HTC is still small in India.”
Another problem that occured with HTC in the recent past (read: the year 2008) is that, it had made a huge splash by marketing the fact that it has launched the cheapest touch phone, but then the global economic crisis followed and the company suddenly found itself faced against the wall. So where did it go wrong? “What happened with HTC was that it had not hedged against the dollar and was impacted quite adversely and because of that they were unable to launch any new handsets in the Indian market and hence could not keep up the excitement that they had earlier created,” says Ram Makhijani, a telecom analyst. Certainly, any keen observer would have noted the fact that today, HTC only offers 11 products, unlike during 2007, when it had as many as 17! But Sharma dismisses this as the truth as he proclaims, “We are evolving as a company, and what we were doing at that time was right then and what we are doing now is what the time demands from us now.” Defending its claims, HTC also points out that it grew by a whopping 300% during FY‘09 as compared to FY‘08. What’s more, the company plans to sell 1 million units by 2010!
HTC also claims that in its short span there have been a few learnings for them, which they are now applying to the market and is expecting to get good results out of the same. One such learning is that when a person is looking at buying a touch phone especially at such price bands, he/she prefers to get a feel of the same before paying for it and hence, just a dummy may not work. So, HTC has put in place a demo zone at high-end retail outlets to encourage experiential buying.
So, the question remains – will the HTC brand receive more favour in the eyes of Indian consumers? Well, going by Sharma’s confident approach, there is no need to worry for those 25% in HTC’s R&D labs; for the rest (75%) are doing their ‘smart’ selling & branding bit on the field. By the way, I guess HTC could start by disclosing what HTC stands for, as an acronym.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Innovation lies at the heart of HTC, and as company officials claim, 25% of the total workforce is engaged in R&D. Though the company has managed to capture a sizeable presence in India, yet in terms of brand power, it has to make bigger and better marketing efforts, especially when the market has other well-established brands that had moved in much earlier than HTC. Another hurdle for HTC is that, given the fact that it operates in the price points above Rs.10,000, it is clearly gunning the upper crust of the market. Today, the only other player that operates in just the plus Rs.10,000 segment is Blackberry, but its brand is much more recognised and has thus already created a cult following amongst its target group. As Rajeev Makhani, a mobile handset expert and host of Gadget guru at NDTV states, “Blackberry has been widely accepted in the corporate circle, who have actually started a culture of Blackberries. In comparison to that HTC is still small in India.”
Another problem that occured with HTC in the recent past (read: the year 2008) is that, it had made a huge splash by marketing the fact that it has launched the cheapest touch phone, but then the global economic crisis followed and the company suddenly found itself faced against the wall. So where did it go wrong? “What happened with HTC was that it had not hedged against the dollar and was impacted quite adversely and because of that they were unable to launch any new handsets in the Indian market and hence could not keep up the excitement that they had earlier created,” says Ram Makhijani, a telecom analyst. Certainly, any keen observer would have noted the fact that today, HTC only offers 11 products, unlike during 2007, when it had as many as 17! But Sharma dismisses this as the truth as he proclaims, “We are evolving as a company, and what we were doing at that time was right then and what we are doing now is what the time demands from us now.” Defending its claims, HTC also points out that it grew by a whopping 300% during FY‘09 as compared to FY‘08. What’s more, the company plans to sell 1 million units by 2010!
HTC also claims that in its short span there have been a few learnings for them, which they are now applying to the market and is expecting to get good results out of the same. One such learning is that when a person is looking at buying a touch phone especially at such price bands, he/she prefers to get a feel of the same before paying for it and hence, just a dummy may not work. So, HTC has put in place a demo zone at high-end retail outlets to encourage experiential buying.
So, the question remains – will the HTC brand receive more favour in the eyes of Indian consumers? Well, going by Sharma’s confident approach, there is no need to worry for those 25% in HTC’s R&D labs; for the rest (75%) are doing their ‘smart’ selling & branding bit on the field. By the way, I guess HTC could start by disclosing what HTC stands for, as an acronym.
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM fights meltdown, places 2300 students By Education Mail Bureau
Delhi/ NCR B- Schools get better By Swati Sharma
Event at IIPM
Detail of all IIPM branches
IIPM set to beat economic slowdown
IIPM Admission Detail
IIPM - Admission Procedure
IIPM, GURGAON
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