Zee Media Bureau/Vibhuti Jaitley/Rd. Alexander
New Delhi: A panel of speakers at the "BGR Dream 500 million smartphones" conference in the national capital on Wednesday expressed confidence that it was possible to achieve the target of 500 million smartphone base users in the country.
According to research firm Gartner, smartphone sales grew by 20 percent in the July-September period and its expects that nine out of 10 phones will be smartphones by 2018.
The “BGR Dream 500 million smartphones” event held in New Delhi witnessed a packed house with a multitude of speakers from ranging from microchip manufacturesrs, e-commerce website spokespersons to smartphone brands/developers.
Some of the biggest and upcoming names in the technology industry were present at the leadership conclave.
The entire fraternity gathered under one roof to share their views and align towards achieving a common goal of reaching smartphone user base of 500 million.
On being asked about the hurdles that are present to achieve 500 million smartphone user target, the panelist present at the discussion had various points to put across.
“Entertainment drives sales and consumers the rest of the eco-system will follow if you can capture the customers’ mind,” Antii Ohrling, Country Director, Rovio, India said.
Debashish Ghosh, Chief Knowledge Officer, Essel Group said that the key challenge was to get right synergy between Operating system, device, content and broadband to achieve the goal.
Sandeep Sibal, country manager and VP Qualcomm India and South Asia, on the other hand said that affordability is an important aspect to fulfill the dream. An inexpensive broadband tariff can also be a driving force to up the user base.
Hugo Bara, VP, Xiaomi International was also of the opinion that price was a big factor in sales of smartphones.
He said that affordable pricing of smartphone is also very important and expected that smartphones will become less expensive in India.
