Nomophobia — no-mobile phobia — spares few in 2019. With smartphones becoming our extended selves, we are too attached to devices and when “5% charge” pops up on the screen, low-battery anxiety kicks in. Since we have offloaded various parts of our lives to the mobile phone — meeting times to family photos to food-delivery services — the feeling of being “cut off” can be overwhelming for many.
Samsung is coming in with a new member — the Galaxy M30s — in its online-exclusive series on September 18. Besides all the usual bells and whistles, it features perhaps the most important aspect one looks at while shopping for smartphones – battery. This one will have a 6,000mAh battery.
Asim Warsi, senior vice-president, mobile business, Samsung India
t2 caught up with Asim Warsi, senior vice-president, mobile business, Samsung India, in Delhi to talk about the Galaxy M series.
The Galaxy M series was the first big launch from Samsung this year. How much of a difference has it made to the company?
The M series was conceived for and built around Indian Gen Z shoppers who live online. It was built around all the insights about their habits and demands. From the get-go, the series caught the attention of Gen Z and on account of that we are growing in our online business at over 100 per cent year-on-year, that is, more than doubling our online business on the back of the M series. It is just the beginning and a very strong one at that.
The whole proposition of the series revolves around power which is espoused through the battery, the camera, the display, everything that is important to these devices. If all that resonates so well with consumers, we have taken all of that and just dialed it up to the next level in the new launches in the series. Though the M series sells globally in many markets, it all started here.
And that brings us to the new launches.
We are about to launch two models — M30s and M10s. Everything that was powerful and exciting has been dialled up. M30s, for example, will come not with a 5,000mAh battery but a 6,000mAh battery with fast-charging, Super AMOLED display and triple camera with a 48MP lens, Exynos 9611 stack and so on.
We are also launching M10s. If the other phone is in the Rs 15-20,000K bracket, M10s is below Rs 10,000. But mind you, the consumer will still get enough in that price bracket — dual camera, 4,000mAh battery, fingerprint scanner... all the bells and whistles consumers seek.
We are also launching a memory variant of an existing device. So we have the M30. On popular demand, we are bringing in a device with a lower memory variant — 3GB RAM and 32GB storage, effectively getting that in the Rs 10-15,000 bracket. In a sense, you will have three new devices, launching shortly at the end of this month. I am glad to say we have been maintaining a triple-digit growth rate till date on the back of these new devices and all the other devices that we are launching as well, besides the M series.
A lot of the things we do in the M series are not done for a reason on a flagship device. Gen Z use the device for, say, gaming or uploading videos. So battery is an important factor and thus the 6,000mAh battery on the M30s
— Asim Warsi of Samsung India
You obviously have set your eyes on the upcoming festive season.
We are expecting over two million devices — all devices, lead by the M series — in online in the one month leading into Diwali. So we are seeing at a shipment of like Rs 3,000 crore gross merchandise value revenue in online for our partners and for ourselves. This is a very healthy growth over last Diwali.
You have the Galaxy A series which sells offline as well as online. How do you distinguish the M series from the A series?
While the target audience is the same, within Gen Z the shopping behaviour is different, which is to say that the offline buyer is an experience-seeking buyer. This person wants to touch, feel and see the finish of the phone and so on. Cut to the online buyer; the person is spec-driven — processor, gaming capabilities and so on. This group does all the research on tech sites, YouTube and go through reviews on e-commerce sites. The A series is different in terms of colours and finish.
What are next flagship features that would get featured on mid-level phones?
Flagships, of course, are the fountainheads of innovation and many of the features would trickle down over time. This is seen in terms of camera, display and charging. But there are times when technology gets created mid-up or mid-down. A lot of the things we do in the M series are not done for a reason on a flagship device. We know this segment of the market; they use the device for, say, gaming or uploading videos. So battery is an important factor and thus the 6,000mAh battery.
