Samsung led the 5G smartphone market in India last year, and the company recently said it wants to “democratize 5G in India” by 2023. Samsung wants to make 5G smartphones available to everyone, but even so, it won’t stop offering 4G smartphones, mainly for the low-end.
Aditya Babbar, Samsung’s head of product and marketing in India, recently confirmed that the Galaxy A is the best-selling smartphone series in India in 2022, with more than 62 million customers. Samsung overtook Xiaomi to become the country’s largest smartphone OEM in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Samsung also released the Galaxy M and Galaxy F devices, the latter series for the Indian market only. Despite this, the Galaxy A seems to be the series of choices for budget customers in India.
Samsung wants to stay on top of smartphone shipments by 2023, the company’s senior director added. To achieve this goal, the company is betting on 5G, aiming for 75 percent of its smartphone business in India to come from 5G devices.
Samsung launched the Galaxy A14 5G and A23 5G in India earlier this month, and Aditya Babbar says Samsung will continue to bring more 5G phones to India this year.
Even so, Samsung is not giving up on the 4G space. Samsung is having a hard time bringing 5G phones to the INR 10,000 (currently about RMB 832) price point, and Samsung wants to “continue to innovate at each price point and evolve as the market grows.” With that in mind, 4G smartphones are here to stay. At least until 5G technology becomes more affordable.
The Samsung Galaxy A14 5G recently went on sale in India, starting at INR 16,499 (currently about RMB 1,373). Samsung also announced the Galaxy A23 5G phone, starting at INR 22,999 (currently about RMB 1914).
