By Gokul Bhagabati
New Delhi, May 29 (IANS) Riding sales of Galaxy A and online-only Galaxy M series, Samsung is on track to beat Xiaomi as the No. 1 smartphone seller in India this year, according to a top executive of the South Korean tech giant.
"We are aiming to double online market share in the country this year. Overall, we are expecting a healthy double-digit growth in revenue in the India smartphone business," Asim Warsi, Senior Vice-President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, told IANS, here on Wednesday. The company "should be" the biggest smartphone seller in the country by the end of this year, he added.
Samsung has sold within 3 months two million M series smartphones, in addition to over 5 million Galaxy A phones in 70 days.
With 48.6 per cent share of the online channel, Xiaomi maintained its leadership position in the India smartphone market in the first quarter of 2019, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Online sales reached 40.2 per cent of the India smartphone market in the same period.
Samsung increased its online share to 13.5 per cent in the same quarter. But with the launch of its India-first Galaxy M series phones, the company is "pushing the envelope" to increase its share of the online channel.
"Our business in online has taken a vertical take off, thanks to the three M series models," Warsi said, adding its phones in other series were also available online.
The three M series models that Samsung has launched are -- Galaxy M10, M20, and M30 -- in the Rs 8,000 to Rs 18,000 price range.
Its fourth phone in the series will be M40, scheduled for launch on June 11. "We are planning to launch the Galaxy M40 at around Rs 20,000," Warsi said.
"The Galaxy M40, to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, will have the screen sound technology. The sound is created through the vibration of the screen," Warsi said.
The phone will also have the "Hole-in-Display", a technology currently available in its flagship S10 series.
(Gokul Bhagabati can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
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