Domestic firms Spice and Intex will launch India's first Firefox operating system-based mobiles next week, a move that will further heat up the strongly contested affordable smartphone market.
The BCCI followed the reverse bidding process to select the two new team owners. The new teams will replace the suspended teams Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, for two years.
Micromax is at second spot in smartphone sales.
Multinational mobile companies such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG, who dominate the mobile handset space with over 75 per cent of the market share, might face a new challenge. This time it's not from Chinese unbranded products, which have been flooding the Indian market.
IPL Player draft: How the bidding went
Most India brands have started offering 3G-enabled phones with a starting price of about Rs 4,000.
'In two years there will be consolidation. Look at the Indian brands now. Only three of us are surviving, many others have died. What will differentiate us are two things -- timing of our launches in the market and the communication to the consumer," Narendra Bansal, CMD of Intex, tells Arnab Dutta.
The next edition of the Indian Premier League will be held from April 9 with new franchisees Rajkot and Pune, which replaced Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. The tournament will begin five days after conclusion of the ICC World Twenty20, which India will host.
'Twenty20 cricket can be a lottery at times, but I think we'll definitely reach the semifinals.'
Experts believe cyclical glitches account for the downturn in mobile-phone sales
Despite all the controversies, the IPL's brand value hasn't diminished. Instead, says Harish Kotian/Rediff.com, the IPL made the BCCI richer by over Rs 3 billion!
The software company has already tied up with handset makers such as Intex and Spice.
Mozilla showcased a smartphone prototype costing as little as $25 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, targeting developing countries including India and China.
With slower than expected growth in smartphone penetration, operators and OEMs are joining hands to provide affordable mobile devices with attractive offers.
Karbonn Mobiles, Intex, Lava, Micromax and Maxx Mobile are among the brands that have entered markets in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, West Asia and Africa.
a list of top five powerbanks that strike a perfect balance between price, portability and capacity
At least two of them - Lava and Micromax - are arming themselves against the Chinese rivals which made them insignificant in the local market over the past few years.
In a first, the India's smartphone market fell by 4%.
Consumer products like mobile phones and laptops may become cheaper as the overall taxes on goods are likely to come down
India is the world's third largest smartphone market.
Competition in the booming multi-billion dollar Indian smartphone market is further set to intensify with e-commerce giants Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal all set to launch Google's much-awaited sub-$100 (around Rs 6,000) handsets on Monday.
Has the IPL, its players and fans become secondary as big companies cynically use India's most followed and visible sport to push their phone or toothpaste brands?
Overall mobile phone production was about 68 million in 2014, increased to 100 million in 2015 and 350-400 million in July 2016.
Voting in the first phase began with reports of multiple faulty electronic voting machines at various booths, prompting Congress leaders to request quick action from the poll body.
Companies are playing the price game to woo customers.
While the 'Made in China' tag continues to be dominant as far as handsets in India go, things are beginning to change.
Former skipper Sunil Gavaskar has suggested that Rajkot, the new team in the Indian Premier League, should have an Indian captain, saying it makes sense to have somebody who knows the local players well at the helm.
Suresh Raina currently endorses Ceat Tyres, Pureplay (apparel brand) and is expected to sign on Intex, a petroleum brand (he launched Repsol by Gulf Oil last year), and a health care brand.
How Bajaj, Colgate, Raymonds, Zee lost out.. Strategic errors have hurt many companies, says adguru Sandeep Goyal.
Set up in partnership with Compal Electronics, the facility in Greater Noida will have an initial capacity of 60,000 units a month. This will be ramped up to 2,00,000 by the end of December.
Samsung on Monday launched its 'Note 5' in the country priced at Rs 53,990.
Trends like bundled offers and 4G-LTE feature phones could become mainstream in 2018
According to analysts, most of the growth in the smartphone space will come from existing users, who will be lured to upgrade their handsets as new features and technologies turn existing features redundant, says Arnab Dutta.
Motorola said it has crossed the three million device sales milestone.
It also sports 128MB RAM, 256MB memory (expandable up to 32GB), 2MP camera and 1350 mAh battery.
In 2015, as many as 15 major Chinese smartphone brands stepped into India.
Samsung makes the largest number of non-4G feature phones in India
The Canadian smartphone maker is banking on its platform-agnostic security and software products to make incursions in the market.
Google Inc on Monday launched the first smartphones powered by its Android One operating system in India, pricing them at around Rs 6,399 ($105) to capture the low-cost segment of the world's fastest growing smartphone market.
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