Question

please read chapter vi discussing global trade theory and the WSJ article ( Feb20/18 beginning"Asian" concerning Chinese companies that are grabbing market share in the Indian market from Apple and Samsung. In your opinion how should these firms respond to this challenge ?

Answer 1

India is a growing economy that is seeing a huge growth in the middle-class segment of the market. People want products that are high on features and have a reasonable pricing. The Chinese products realized this and came up with smartphones are affordable and gave the same features that an iPhone or a Samsung high-end phone would give. Samsung and Apple continued to remain as the premium brands in the Indian market but it backfired as the people started moving towards brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo. These brands acquired the market share became a household name in a few years. So the best way to tackle this problem for Apple and Samsung would be to create a new line of products that affordable to buy and also have all the latest features. The one product for all the markets strategy will not work for the Indian market. The companies can take this risk because the population of the country is more than 1.2 billion and the demand for the smartphones is still growing in the market. They need to change their pricing strategy and become more pocket-friendly for the Indian customers. Some of the Indian brands are doing the same and have been quite successful as well. The companies need to attract the people first in order to acquire market share in India. The reason is the Indian population is always ready to try new products and support the brands that deliver value for money. The companies cannot be negligent just because they are market leaders and they need to put in efforts to understand the Indian market well. They can do this by having manufacturing units in the country so that they can do cost cutting and provide products a lower price. Only this can help these two companies in tackling the competition from the Chinese companies in the Indian market.