Resilience to global macro-economic headwinds makes India a key focus

BARCELONA: India's resilience to global macro-economic headwinds has made it a key focus market for Nokia brand mobile phone maker HMD Global, a senior company official said here.

While speaking with PTI at the Mobile World Congress, HMD Global Vice President for India, Middle East and North Africa region, Sanmeet Singh Kochhar said that the company will make products tailor-made to suit the demand of Indian customers as well as expand the export base of made in India mobile phones as per part of enhanced business activities for India.

He said that HMD-made Nokia phones will continue to carry the old logo and not the new one which was unveiled at MWC.

''India as an economy has been growing very strongly and has shown resilience to the global headwinds which are there. We have this focus market strategy and India is going to be one of our key focus markets for our growth. This means that we are going to launch products which are focused and tailor-made for our fans in India,'' he said.

The company has re-entered India's premium smartphone market with Nokia X30 5G after a long gap and expects to grow its market share with the launch of sub-Rs 10,000 4G smartphones and the expansion of 5G portfolio.

Kochhar said that Nokia X30 5G is one of the tailor-made products for Indian customers as it comes with low light imaging, three years of operating system updates and three years of monthly security updates which makes it fit for a longer duration of use. ''This year we will bring affordable 5G phones to India. We will bring a wide range of smartphones to India which we believe will grow our market share,'' he said.

He said that the company for the first time after a period of nine years has crossed 30 per cent market share in the feature phones segment in value terms despite a decline in the volumes of overall industry performance.

''We are looking at double-digit growth in India. This is going to be a significant year of growth for us. While industry performance has declined, our numbers are looking positive. We are very well placed in a time when our competition is facing significant headwinds.

We believe that is a fantastic opportunity for us to grow our market share in India,'' Kochhar said. According to market research firm IDC, the Indian mobile phone market declined by 12 per cent in 2022 to 201 million. The smartphone market declined by 10 per cent year-on-year to 144 million while feature phones shipment dropped by 18 per cent YoY to 57 million.