Converged to Conquer

Looking at the India market and how it has evolved, Tablets have emerged as converged devices that create a unique user experience. They are aimed to satisfy an emerging demand that is poised to grow phenomenally as consumers begin to explore the limitless potential of this device. Tablets to a large extent play a mobile phone and thus mobile phones and tablets are seen as analogous when being positioned in the retail market to win upon.

Vendors' Retail Strategies… 

Samsung truly believes that the 'touch and feel' format is the way to go forward for brands in this highly competitive market. With the launch of Smartphone Cafes and first ever Mobile Brand store, Samsung has taken a significant steps towards creating new, unique and holistic product experiences for consumers at the retail level. It also has well trained demonstrators for explaining the product features to the consumers helping them to choose the right phone. 

"These retail concepts provide an interactive experience for consumers looking to buy its Smartphones, Tablets and portable PCs. We also have well trained demonstrators for explaining the product features to the consumers helping them to choose the right phone. India is an extremely important market for us and we are looking at a growth rate of 25-30 per cent in India this year, driven largely by mobile phones and notebooks.  We currently have 300 smartphone cafés and plan to double this number in 2012. We are also aiming to expanding Samsung Mobile Brand Stores and are planning to open 8-10 brand stores in the top metros and large cities. Samsung also has presence in over 90,000 multi-brand retail outlets in the country," explains, Ranjit Yadav, Country Head, Mobile and IT, Samsung India.

At the same time, Blackberry has different formats of store that are already available across India. "The first format that we had was a Shop in Shop.  We call it the Blackberry Experience Zone. We also have the full fledged stores which we call the Blackberry Experience Stores. The look, feel and experience of these stores are very different. Now we have come up with the Blackberry Premium Store and what we also intend to do is that every person who walks out of our store with a device will have their device which is activated and loaded with applications and their previously owned data. There are some specific sections where we add some display and soon we will add an enterprise section where customers from enterprises can come in and get to know about our products, this is a first of a kind venture," shares, Krishnadeep Baruah, Director, Marketing, RIM India Pvt. Limited.

Positioning of Mobile phones vis-à-vis Tablets 

Samsung is positioning the smartphones and tablet together in its retailing strategy. "Both Samsung Mobile Brand Stores and Samsung Smartphone Cafés feature Samsung's entire smart phones range including tablets and accessories and portable PCs. The new Samsung brand store in Delhi is an exclusive outlet that helps consumers experience the entire range of convergence devices offered by Samsung. These include Samsung smartphones, tablets and Samsung Galaxy Note," says Ranjit Yadav.
Whereas, Sandeep Parasrampuriya-Director, iBall says, "Mobile phones and Tablets are both quite different product and are being positioned and focused separately by iBall. Mobile phones is completely a retail market product. Tablets too will have major sales happening in retail segment as well as in IT channel. Since iBall is present in both the segments i.e Retail and IT, it stands a very good chance to create its mark for Tablet PC too."

Finally…