Over just the last 30 days, Samsung Electronics has launched three 3G-ready handsets in the Indian market. Two of these phones?the Wave, priced at Rs 19,100, and the Galaxy S, to be retailed at Rs 31,500?were launched just last week, and mark the company?s entry into the smartphone category in the country. The third, the Star Nano 3G, was launched late last month. Ranjit Yadav, director?IT and Mobile, Samsung India, talks to Chanpreet Khurana about the company?s expectations from these phones, the new Bada open operating system, and what the roll out of 3G services will mean for the country?s mobile phone industry and for Samsung. Excerpts:
Could you highlight some of Samsung?s hopes with the Wave and Galaxy S phones?
With the launch of Wave and Galaxy S, we are pioneering the democratisation of the smartphone experience in India. Both these devices are aimed at people who want that extra edge; want to be more effective, productive and better connected.
Samsung has been successful in the more affordable phone range in India so far. Do you see the Wave converting a lot of value-for-money consumers into smartphone users?
Based on the feature set of Wave and the overall value proposition it provides, we do expect a lot of feature-based phone users including touch screen users to upgrade to smartphones. We plan to launch three more handsets on the Bada platform this year and are looking at a total line-up of 8-10 smartphones.
Could you elaborate on Samsung?s plans with regard to developing applications and the mobile ecosystem that you?ve referred to in the past?
The Bada platform was launched at the ?Global Developer Day? organised by Samsung Electronics in Bangalore on June 14. At the event, the company engaged with the developer community as well as gave an introduction to the fundamentals of Bada application development. Samsung Bada meaning ?ocean? in Korean, is a driving force in accomplishing Samsung?s vision of a ?smartphone for everyone?. To achieve this vision, Samsung Bada offers a feature-rich, ?pen? platform for providing enhanced mobile experiences to consumers, and a complete mobile ecosystem through a developer support programme.
So you will also be developing applications and content in India for the phone?
We are going to be working very heavily with Indian developers. Anecdotally, I have heard that there are more than 5,000 development houses or companies or people developing content and applications in India, not just for India but for the world. That is one of the advantages we have in India?that the whole application development community exists.
What do these phones have to offer that?s different from what?s on the Android phones and what smartphones such as RIM?s BlackBerry and Apple?s iPhone have to offer?
Samsung has been relatively more successful in the Rs 10,000 and below category in India so far. This will be our big foray in smartphones, so we are going to bring a compelling product set out there.
The Wave is the slimmest phone of its kind. It has an enormous engine inside, with a one gigahertz processor and an OS which is extremely responsive.
Your expectations as to what the 3G services rollout will do for the Indian mobile scenario? What will it mean for Samsung?
What it means is a whole lot of opportunities. Samsung is particularly good for an upgrader market, and India is moving more and more towards an upgrader market. That?s a big opportunity and 3G will drive that.
So you are prepared for when the services roll out?
We are well positioned to take advantage of this, both from the devices side and our collaboration with operators. Samsung is one of the companies that fulfils the full ecosystem in terms of bundling with operators if they choose. We have done a lot of that with, for example, Tata Teleservices (TTSL). Worldwide, that is a very large business model we have. Or we go directly to market, which is the typical India scenario.
We already have tie-ups with content providers for Corby Speed and Metro Speed. We are the first in the market with this where you can get television on demand?440 channels. For it to work on GSM, you need 3G levels of speed.
Do you think the 3G data services will take off dramatically, given that voice-based services account for the lion?s share of revenue for Indian telcos?
The jury is out on this, but if you ask us, we believe strongly that we are at an inflection point. Yes so far it has been voice-based, but history is not necessarily a good indicator of what will happen after the inflection point. Our view is that the services will explode. On the question of speed of implementation and what formats it will take, that?s out there, but the market is extremely competitive. If a couple of operators get in the services, everyone else will come in rather fast. It is a very open market in that sense. So for me, it is going to happen faster than later.
There are many Indias and many realities of India. It is one of the most competitive markets out there. Pricing of services is hypothetical today. They will be competitive and will come down. Of course, they will be higher than what people pay today, but it will be fairly competitive. And there?s a large enough population waiting to upgrade to these services. Our belief is that consumers are willing to pay a little bit more if they get genuine value, and 3G will give that opportunity.
Samsung is looking to spend $22.9 billion worldwide on R&D and bringing up facilities. What share of the spend would be dedicated to India?
These are global spends, and it is not allocated as per country. For example, the India R&D centres also work on global projects. We already have two global development centres in India? one in Bangalore, one in Noida?which support worldwide product development and design development. There are over 1,000 people there.
Your outlook for Samsung mobile business for the second half?
We are looking to double the mobile volumes by the end of this year.