ASCII.jp I actually bought an Indian Micromax smartphone that is one of the 10 best in the world in India!

"Mangauru", a middle city in India where I stayed

The local manufacturer with the largest market share in India is a company called "Micromax" with an impressive "m!" Logo like Goo.

In Hong Kong on June 1, one of the company's top executives, Vikas Jain, said he would like to enter the Chinese market next year as part of the company's globalization.

However, I think that many people have never heard of Micromax in the first place. Therefore, he would like to introduce the Micromax smartphone that I recently purchased as a reference.

Micromax with enhanced services for India

Smartphone section of home electronics mass retailer in Mangaluru

Micromax is one of the top 10 manufacturers in the world to sell mobile phones, including smartphones, on a quarterly basis, according to a recent report by research firm Gartner.

Quarterly shipments were 12.16 million units in the four months of the third quarter of 2015, with a global market share of 2.5%. In the third quarter of 2014, it was 5.64 million units and its share was 1.2%, which means that it has increased considerably.

India is the country where smartphone growth is most noticeable year-on-year, and at the same time feature phones are still active.

Feature phones are sold at the forefront of both private stores and TV shopping. Gartner's statistical data is just "total of smartphones and feature phones". It should be noted that Micromax has also released feature phones and has gained a global market share, including the number of feature phones sold.

People who take selfies stand out on smartphones.The photo is at the food court in the big city "Chennai"

Feature phones are also active in India

Even when walking in the streets of India, smartphones are not as popular as in China and Southeast Asian countries. They take selfies, check them offline, and some people just upload them to Facebook, which isn't the trend for smartphones.

Shopping centers have been built, but public wireless LANs are not open in many places.

A typical model called "Canvas 6 PRO"

There was also the option to buy "Android One"

Micromax is not the only local manufacturer in India. There are other manufacturers such as "Spice", "Karbonn", "iball" and "lvf (Reliance)".

Among them, Micromax, Spice and Karbonn have released "Android One" terminals, which is Google's low-priced platform for emerging countries (Micromax Canvas A1, Karbonn Sparkle V, Spice Dream UNO).

Among them, the reason why Micromax sold is probably because it increased the exposure. Aside from the specifications and the quality of detailed products, if it is recognized by signs inside and outside the store, it means that it is a "manufacturer that I have heard of" and its share will increase.

This is not limited to India, but it is also the case in China in the past, and there was a time when a certain share could be taken if it was conspicuous in the city. In other words, Micromax smartphones and mobile phones are sold in many shops in India.

"Why Micromax has become the number one local manufacturer in India" is being debated online even among Indians. The reason is that it is a bargain in addition to the above-mentioned exposure (marketing).

Just as Xiaomi, which is cheaper than Samsung and Sony, has become popular in China, Micromax, which is cheaper than foreign manufacturers, has become popular in India.

With the spread of smartphones, even if the number of CPU clocks and cores is a factor for consumers to judge in the spec sheet, few people are concerned about whether it is Snapdragon or MediaTek, so we adopted Mediatek. People who do not know that it is cheap pay attention to cost performance.

It is said that "services for India are within reach" and "Indian maker", a patriotic spice, have become popular.

By the way, Chinese manufacturers have also expanded into India and are actively promoting it, but Indians are reluctant to look down on Chinese products and are not willing to buy them at the moment.