Indian smartphone market has grown immensely in past few years and the credit goes to the companies which are providing quality products at affordable prices.
Although, e-commerce industry has seen a boom in selling smartphones, still, there is a huge section of buyers who like to spend their money in physical stores. There was a time when Samsung was the single leader in this segment but other brands such as Oppo, Vivo, Motorola have made their place in the Indian market. The major reason for the increase in sales of these brands is that customers are now finding it easy to trust foreign companies.
Oppo and Vivo are seen as favourites if we talk about smartphones that are sold at offline stores in India. Owned by the same parent organization BBK Electronics, these 2 brands along with OnePlus have made Indians spend money on their high-end flagship phones which is a great achievement considering the mindset Indians had about Chinese brands.
Also Read: How Oppo, Vivo & OnePlus Are Making Waves With Single Parent
Below are some marketing strategies Oppo and Vivo used to capture Indian offline smartphone market:
1. Giving high margins to retailer
If you go to any mobile store in your town, Oppo and Vivo phones are most common to be available. This is because these brands pay huge margins to the retailers which makes them automatically sell these phones on the priority basis. While most companies keep retailer margins around 5-8 percent, opp and Vivo are happy to pay 14-16 percent.
2. Using the best brand ambassadors
Both Oppo and Vivo have spent heavily for signing popular Indian stars. Indians love Bollywood and cricket, and both these brands have captured audience from these platforms. Vivo is the official sponsor of the most viewed cricket event in the country-Indian Premier League (IPL), whereas Oppo has been seen on the Indian national team t-shirts. Recently, Vivo has signed Aamir Khan for the advertisements of the latest smartphone.
3. Aggressive use of banners and hoardings
Both brands have been trolled for their hoardings which are present in almost all mobile stores of the country, but they have been successful in making their names popular. This simple strategy is very impactful if we consider the offline market as the things we see while walking on the roads tends to get stored in our brain and its repetition is even more effective.
4. Keeping their focus on one segment
A lot of times brands get carried away with the success they achieve and they end up in doing too many things for expanding their business. Oppo and Vivo kept calm and didn’t experiment too much but remained active in the market by adopting latest trends and technologies. Smartphone buyers have always been their target audience and they are good at dealing with them.
