The Indian division of Samsung Electronics promoted two high-level executives to new positions earlier this month, with local mobile chief Asim Warsi being given the role of the company’s Global Vice President and its Bengaluru-based R&D institute’s director Dipesh Shah promoted to the position of the Global Senior Vice President, IANS reported on Friday, citing industry sources. Both newly elevated executives will continue operating in India and oversee Samsung’s operations as the company ramps up its ambitious investment plans aimed at strengthening its position in the local market. The tech giant’s next major investment amounts to Rs. 4,915 crore ($756 million) that it’s planning to commit to its product manufacturing plant in Noida, Samsung confirmed earlier this year. The goal of the expansion is to double the firm’s Android smartphone production in the country while simultaneously boosting the local economy, thus strengthening its relations with New Delhi that has been aggressively promoting the “Make In India” initiative in recent times.
Mr. Shah’s success with positioning Samsung’s institute in Bengaluru in line with the Make In India program is said to be one of the main reasons for his promotion, according to people familiar with the matter. Previous statements from the company officials indicated that Samsung is largely satisfied with its 2017 performance as the firm continued leading the market across a variety of handset segments. According to some estimates, Samsung seized more than 65 percent of the Indian smartphone market by value in the third quarter of the year, with its performance partially being strengthened by the Diwali period, traditionally a lucrative term for consumer electronics manufacturers in the South Asian country. Despite the fact that Samsung’s local phone business is still growing, its expansion is presently being outpaced by Xiaomi, still a relatively new entity in India which it entered only three years ago, yet is currently the second largest handset vendor in the country with a realistic chance of overtaking Samsung in the coming months, according to numerous industry trackers.
The South Korean original equipment manufacturer is now reportedly in the process of revamping its India strategy by specifically targeting some of Xiaomi’s Redmi-branded handsets, currently the firm’s top performers in the region. As per industry sources, new Galaxy J and Galaxy ON-series devices are set to be launched shortly, being aimed at matching Xiaomi’s offerings both in terms of features and prices. The increasingly competitive state of the Indian smartphone market should ultimately benefit consumers as more companies get involved in price wars and commit to offering bigger incentives for purchasing their products.