Samsung Electronics, the South Korean consumer electronics company, is expanding in India, opening on Tuesday (Sept. 11) its largest mobile store in the world.
According to a report in Reuters, citing Samsung Electronics, the 33,000-square-foot store is located in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru. The aim of the new store is to further extend its lead over Apple in India’s smartphone market. With more than one billion wireless connections, the India market presents a lot of opportunity for Samsung and other electronics players.
“India is an extremely important market,” Mohandeep Singh, senior vice president, mobile business at Samsung India, told Reuters, adding that Samsung has plans to open more stores like this one in 10 of India’s top cities. “These stores … will really help us further consolidate our share as we move forward.”
Reuters reported the new stores will showcase Samsung mobile devices, as well as other consumer electronics products and the latest innovations from the company. It will also be home to a service center for its mobile phones. The report noted that Samsung operates 2,100 stores in India via franchise partners.
Earlier this month, CNBC, citing DJ Koh, the chief executive officer of Samsung Electronics, reported the company is redoing the pricing for its Galaxy A line of smartphones as it contends with a slowing market.
“In the past, I brought the new technology and differentiation to the flagship model and then moved to the mid-end. But I have changed my strategy from this year to bring technology and differentiation points starting from the mid-end,” Koh told CNBC in an exclusive interview last week.
According to Koh, the company plans to bring cutting-edge features to the lower-end models, with the first of the new devices slated for later in 2018. The hope is that the new features at a cheaper price point will fuel sales. In the second quarter of this year, the mobile handset unit saw a 20 percent dip in year-over-year sales. Koh said the idea is to cater to more millennials with the lower-end phones.
“So we are very much focusing on millennials who cannot afford the flagship. But how can I deliver meaningful innovation to our millennials? That’s the reason I’m trying to differentiate the mid-section,” Koh said. “You do not want to give Jeff Bezos a seven-year head start.”
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