If one were to observe the recent communication campaign for mobile phones, everyone is talking whether their phone has a 2, 3,4 or even a 5 megapixel camera . One wonders if it is the mobile which is being sold or the camera. A few years back most of us looked forward to the convergence era, but it has not delivered as much as it had promised. We still use our Digital Cameras for major occasions and the Mobile phone camera tends to have limited usage. But then why is that almost every major phone manufacturer is talking about the cameras, be it the Metal Series of Samsung or Nokia N82 series.....
There are a few reasons why this is happening , first would be the fact that the prices of cameras has dropped and they can be added to the phone without actually making it every expensive as it use to happen in the early days of the camera+mobile. Second is that though there is clarity at the lower end of the phone market in terms of the "value proposition" being offered - a working phone with good battery life, and a low cost, but the same is missing at the higher end, so adding a camera and other functionality is being seen as an excuse to charge higher. Among other reasons could be the "Herd Mentality" in the industry wherein everyone is just following the other and hopes that by offering a higher resolution camera would seal the deal for him.
One might argue that the technology has stabilized leading to force the companies to look for differentiating points outside the basic functionality of the product. But one has to just see the developments in the FMCG products where the very scope of differentiation is limited due to the very basic nature of the products to understand the possibilities which exist in differentiation.
It is not just limited to cameras, most of the communication about mobile phones is about either the mp3 players, VGA camera and where is the basic functionality of the Mobile Phone one wonders
As you mentioned it yourself, the technology has stabilized.. One can only hope to improve signal reception at the most in the area of Mobile Phones and the rest depends on the service providers.
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree with the fact that cameras have a limited use. Since people tend to carry around their phones around, it is always handy to have a camera too. I myself miss a camera in my phone as many occasions are worth capturing on film....
Indian mobile users sadly still only see handsets as voice communication devices and status symbols. In my experience, lots of people buy these phones but won't subscribe to gprs or even know of its capabilities.(raise your hand if you've ever posted a photo to an online service like Flickr from your nokia n series device).
ReplyDeleteLook at the european or japanese markets,they have 3G networks already and more people use them. What value added service do our indian mobile operators offer to boost gprs traffic?nothing but pimping ringtones for the latest piece of bollywood crap.
Technology moves forward and this allows phone makers to add new features that are used by people ahead of the curve.
Just because our indian users are so short sighted about the potential of a high tech handset is no reason to be so critical of them.
Oh and by the way-i typed this entire post on my Nokia N82. And yeah, i live in India too.
I'm back-at a PC this time.
ReplyDeleteRather surprising you would categorize mobile phones as FMCGs.
Of course, if you start off with a flawed assumption like that, it's easy to see where the rest of your post goes.
You apparently still follow the dark ages where a mobile phone is nothing but a landline that you carry in your pocket-in short, for nothing other than voice calls and SMS.
Understand that goods are sold because there is a demand for them.
People buy both Maruti 800s and Mercedes Maybachs. The value proposition in both cases is completely different, targeted at completely different sets of people, and both of them sell very well because they're offered at an optimum price point between buyer and seller.(In the case of luxury products, price is not a factor that is considered when buying)
To return to mobile phones- you have to look at the Japanese and other markets to see where the future of such technology is.
Indians are extremely cost conscious. Your very post underscores the fact. I'm not indicting us as a country for this-there are cultural and historical precedents for this mentality-but it does come in the way.
'Why should I pay money to surf internet on a 2 inch screen when I have fast broadband at home?'
You can't fault that kind of thinking.
To quote you-
there is clarity at the lower end of the phone market in terms of the "value proposition" being offered - a working phone with good battery life, and a low cost, but the same is missing at the higher end, so adding a camera and other functionality is being seen as an excuse to charge higher.
Excuse to charge higher??
What, you mean having a 5 megapixel CCD sensor, xenon flash, lightmeter and picture modes-features found in any consumer digital camera-would get added on for free?
Yeah, I totally get it; the Bugatti Veyron also has a 1000 horsepower engine only so that they can charge more for it.
Are you really into marketing-given that you cannot understand something as basic as product differentiation?
Pricewise, Nokia covers the entire spectrum of users.
A basic Nokia 1100 vs. a top end N95/N82 - both sets of which are aimed at very different users.
The 1100 is a basic phone, designed to be dust resistant and sturdy, with just voice and sms-for the silent price sensitive majority that is rural and semi-urban india.
There are also people on this planet, who view their phone as a complete personal communication and entertainment device.
The ability to communicate- be it sharing content (photos/video/music) or voice (cellular as well as VOIP) or messaging (Email/SMS/IM).
The ability to access content and entertainment from anywhere-music, videos,photos,websites,podcasts,RSS feeds and so on.
I personally have benefited from being able to check my private email,contact someone urgently over chat or catch up on reading when I'm far away from a broadband network PC.
I have seen your other blogs- you write well on rural marketing issues and appear to have hands on experience in this regard. However, please get a clue about the mobile world before making broad based statements as you've done.
Dear Rex and Varun,
ReplyDeleteI am happy to see people disagreeing with me and I am the first one to agree with certain facts like maybe the post was a little harsh on the utility of cameras in phones, which i personally have missed on many occasions as has varun.
And rex obviously is higher on the technology curve than I am -:), but then everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. And I would say that I am more representative of the typical India which still uses the mobile for mainly communication, though there is a sizable and a growing population has started using the mobile for various value added services.
Referring to rex's first comment, about what the industry is doing to boost the gprs traffic, the fact is that with the kind of growth we have in India today - 7-8 million new subscribers a month they have there hands full handling this growth, and only when the market starts to saturate operators would start looking to add revenues through more value added services. And I wouldn't agree to your comment on Indian consumers being short sighted and me being critical on them, my post is critical not about consumer but about manufactures...
Again one more correction with Mobiles = FMCG, I think you have misunderstood me, in my post when I quote FMCG I am asking the Mobile (With a lot of scope differentiation) manufactures to learn from FMCG(Low scope of differentiation, inherent in the nature of the products vis.a.vis a mobile), I hope this clarifies your point, on me equating mobile and FMCG.
I tend to agree with you that Japanese market is the one which needs to be watched on how the technology is evolving. Infact I have mentioned this in one of my earlier posts, and the fact that today more people access internet through mobiles than PCs in Japan should be an indicator on the future potential of the device.
One more aspect which I would like to clarify before I go further is that the post focuses on the communication campaign of Mobile phones currently on and not on the inbuilt features, which as REX himself accepts is being used by a very small part of the population, so when I say excuse to charge "higher price" for a consumer who will not end up using any of the "n" number of features , the price he ends up paying extra would be for the camera (and that is why maybe the communication campaign also focuses on that)..
With regard to your comment on me knowing marketing, I can only claim to be a avid student, with a keen interest in the subject which has been there for many years and hopefully will be there for many more years to come.
But then marketing is seen differently by different people, as a consumer you have different view of what marketing is all about and as a marketer it is different and so it as a keen observer...
The problem with consumer's perspective is that we tend to generalize about markets and marketing seeing our friends and colleagues, sitting in their AC cubicles, and only exposure to markets and marketing is through the internet and perhaps the trips from office to home.....
My blog talks about what is happening in Indian marketplace, and obviously the posts would be colored by my own view of the market which I can assure is more diverse and varied than ..... by which I am not claiming that I cannot be wrong...I look forward to more comments and suggestions