The Indian smartphone market grew 3.2% with 39 million units shipment in the second quarter of 2024, market research firm International Data Corporation recently revealed.
Interestingly, the market growth was led by Chinese smartphone maker Vivo with a 16.5% share in volume terms with its shipment growing by 6.7% on a year-over-year.
Within Vivo, what is emerging as a true player is its online-first sub-brand— iQOO, with a 2.1% market share in the domestic market, according to Statista.
Launched only four years back in 2019, the current market trends are providing the perfect tailwind for the brand to take off, which includes premium play, online-first and features for gaming.
The brand recently also forayed into the entry-level segment with a Rs 10,000 offering and take its quest a notch further to tap young Indians, have launched ‘The Quest Film’ directed by Shoojit Sircar featuring Bhuvan Bam. Along with that a report to decode the aspirations of today’s youth and to offer them the support they need.
In this interview, Nipun Marya, CEO, iQOO, talks about the importance of ‘Make in India’ initiatives for the company, its growth story, and how the festive season will drive the smartphone market.
He further discusses how the brand, despite being a Chinese brand, continues to attract young Indians because of its ethos and offerings.
Edited excerpts:
How would you define IQOO’s marketing strategy?
We don’t go by the traditional way of marketing. I believe if a consumer set like GenZ is into technology and likes your brand, the cohort will certainly find avenues for buying the brand. This holds true especially in a high-involvement category like smartphones.
That apart, for an online brand, the most important things is to launch the right product at the right price and at the right time, so it is more focused on the pull from the consumer than the push from the brand. For us, consumer pull becomes of paramount importance and therefore all the efforts that we undertake are more towards spreading awareness about the product.
How is the company growing in India?
While it is difficult to put a number to our growth given, we are in our formative years, so the focus is to build strong fundamentals for the brand. I believe if you can get the brand ethos and soul of the brand right, we should do well in the medium term to long term.
In the last four years, we have only grown from strength to strength.
How are you also trying to get rid of the ‘Made in China’ image, if at all you are?
For Vivo overall, the Indian market is certainly among the top three markets. Also, I believe that consumers care most about whether a brand’s ethos and offerings are right. Industry reports have suggested how IQOO has been amongst the top brands in terms of customer satisfaction, which reflects that word of mouth is spreading well for us and what we are selling, consumers are buying.
Whatever we are selling in India is assembled here in the Vivo factory. So the company is committed to the ‘Make in India’ initiative and there are significant investments the company is undertaking in the market.
Also, with some of the initiatives that we have taken whether it’s in gaming, e-sports, or our building our community initiative (where more than one million youth today are directly connected with the brand giving us feedback, attending some of our on-ground events, speaking to us, creating with us the marketing campaigns), I can very proudly say we are one of the very few brands, not just in the mobile phone business but in India in general, who are so deeply invested in co-creation with their consumers.
How do you see the upcoming festive season impacting the overall smartphone market?
The landscape looks encouraging for the smartphone market in India. There’s scope for increasing penetration and the ASPs (average selling price) are growing for our industry in general— especially from absolute entry-level phones to mid-level phones.
During the upcoming festive season, we aim to get good growth and good market share. The smartphones market should see a growth of 10% on the back of it.
What has been your volume versus value growth story? What remains the growth enabler for iQOO?
iQOO has seen strong growth in both metro cities and tier one and two towns. We entered the entry-level portfolio last month, for the first time and launched a product that is close to Rs 10,000. Otherwise, we have always launched phones at around Rs 14,000 and upwards price range. For our products with close to Rs 50,000 price range there has been a good response there as well. There has been a very good acceptance within the youth for all kinds of offerings.
I will not like to say that iQOO can drive the narrative of premiumisation. At this stage, growth of iQOO is being driven by good product offerings backed by strong brand appeal among the youth.
Shed some light on how GenZ is as a consumer cohort.
Today’s youth are characterised by their bold dreams and an unwavering drive to bring those dreams to fruition. We recently launched ‘The Quest Report’ which said that 1 out of 4 Indian respondents are more inclined towards new-age job fields like content creation, data analysis, AI, and cybersecurity. 43% of respondents in India and 46% globally are willing to give up work-life balance to succeed in their career.
The report also highlighted that 2X more women in India feel gender affects the pursuit of their dreams compared to men and only 9% of Indian Gen Zs want to pursue entrepreneurship as they seek stability and security in work life. Indian youth are hustlers, they take 2X the initiatives compared to their global peers.
Take us through the recently launched campaign with Bhuvam Bam.
Made under the direction of the renowned filmmaker, Shoojit Sircar, popularly known for his films like Pink, Sardar Udham, and Piku, the the campaign film features an inspiring message from Bhuvan Bam. The 3-minute film tells the tale of a young man, who against the wishes of his father, dares to choose an unconventional path to pursue his dreams as a content creator. The story underscores the importance of exploring one’s true quest, while highlighting the youth’s preference for a new-age career. Conceptualised by Ogilvy India, “Keep Questing” aims to inspire the youth to explore their passions, and follow their dreams and aspirations. The film delves into the quest of the youngest boy of the family who aims to make it big in his life despite multiple hurdles.
Digital is the primary medium of distribution and based on the response we will look at more methods of distribution, going forward. The film will be streaming starting iQOO’s official YouTube channel, Instagram, Twitter, and community platforms. The ensemble cast includes Babla Kochar, Anubha Fatehpuria, Yogendra Singh, Aditya, and Ebong Ipsita.