Samsung Electronics this year expects slow revenue growth compared to last year in India. Even though the company expects slow revenue growth it still continues to outpace the industry in every category it operates.
By 2016 Samsung expects India to become the second largest market for its electronic products which means it will surpass the U.S but will be behind China.
Now most of the growth for Samsung in recent years has come from its cellphone sales which contribute about 70 percent of overall revenue at the company. In the last fiscal year there was a 45 percent expansion in the last fiscal year.
According to Samsung India president HyunChil Hong has stated that the company will surpass the carmaker Maruti Suzuki as the largest consumer products brand in India this year. Hong took over as head of India and neighboring Southwest Asian operations last year.
At that time the company’s hold over the global smartphone market had been slipping which had even forced it to freeze employee salaries in some of the countries. However Hong stated that there is no relation between the global market and India.
The employees in India account for 7 percent of its global workforce. Samsung is also opening its third manufacturing plant in the country that will become operational in 2017.
According to analysts the slowdown in Samsung’s sales has been due to a rise of competitors especially from the local and Chinese rivals along with the U.S based Apple.
Hong however explained that the market share has a seasonal swing and can be taken care of. Samsung launches premium smartphone products twice a year which includes the Galaxy series in spring and the Galaxy Note series in September or October.
This Hong explained gives a push to its market share immediately after. He also explained that the company was holding talks with state governments to set up the proposed third plant.
Some sources however revealed more information and stated that Samsung was talking to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for land and invest $500 million to $1 billion in order to set up the plant.
This facility is being built in order to manufacture all Samsung products including TVs, refrigerators, cellphones, ACs and washing machines. Moreover the company expects the smartphone business to grow by 60 to 70 percent by value and nearly 890 percent by volume in 2015.
The company has high hopes of stronger growth in the mobile phone space based on the launch of its new flagship smartphone the Galaxy S6 and the Z1. Moreover the company is also paying a lot of attention to its online retail channels.
