Samsung's Big Dreams For India

The electronics giant is betting on its local R&D initiative ‘Make for India’ to hold its leadership in a competitive yet challenging market By Paramita Chatterjee

 

- Paramita Chatterjee

AS YOU DRIVE THROUGH Gurugram’s Golf Course Road, it is hard to miss two shiny glass towers that house the headquarters of several top global companies in India — shimmering with the sun’s rays by the day, and glowing in fluorescent lights after the sun sets.

The biggest occupier in this new business district is Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest smartphone and TV maker. Its LED nameplate right on top of Two Horizon Center reflects on India’s booming consumer market below, and stares at the luxurious apartments of some of the country’s biggest businessmen and CEOs around the sprawling DLF golf course greens in the far distance, across the road.

“This is the story of Samsung. When it came to India around 20 years ago, not many knew them,” says Abraham Koshy, professor of marketing at IIM Ahmedabad. “Today, Samsung is one of India’s biggest consumer product companies, which has worked on the confluence of technology and design rather seamlessly,” adds Koshy. For instance, Samsung is comparable in revenue terms only with car maker Maruti Suzuki. It is India’s biggest mobile and TV brand, and is the builder of Reliance Jio’s 4G LTE network — the biggest and busiest data network in the world.

It has been a hard fought battle to win this market. Perceptions, market wars, opportunities, competition — sometimes from their traditional foreign rivals, sometimes from local upstarts, and lately, the Chinese. But every single time Samsung has been able to stave off the threats and hold its ground. It has continued to be the market leader in the television segment for over 12 years and in the mobile business for six years, after it toppled Nokia in 2012. Since then, there has been no looking back. Or so it seemed till now.