The latest smartphone One plus 8 series 5G was welcomed with overwhelming demands from Indian customers after its release on 18th June. The e-commerce website ‘Amazon‘ and ‘oneplus.in‘ depleted the stocks in no minutes of its release. The entire batch of smartphones was out-of-stock after a brief moment. The next release is scheduled for 22nd June.
The popular smartphone brand Xiaomi is not behind either. When sales are accounted for, it always tops the headlines. Xiaomi released the Mi Notebook series of laptops on 17th June on its own platform ‘mi.com‘. The demands were huge and the stocks depleted in a short while. The next batch of laptops is due to be on sale soon.
This is surprising to know that Chinese smartphone manufacturing companies OnePlus and Xiaomi are skyrocketing the sales despite nationwide ‘Boycott’ calls for Chinese goods. Government sources say that at least 20 Indian soldiers were martyred in the Galwan Valley after India-China violent faceoff on 15 June. This incident festered anti-Chinese sentiments among Indians and later resulted in “Boycott China” calls.
Unprecedented Boycott Calls;
The “Anti-China” sentiments were so fierce that people came out in public to appeal for it rather resorting to social media only.
Swadeshi Jagran Manch took to street protest against China. The activists shouted anti-China slogans outside the Chinese Embassy in Delhi. The Manch also appealed Indians to rely on Indian products completely.
The BJP workers in Bengal protested against China too. They urged people to use Indian products rather than Chinese. However, the workers burned the effigy of North Korean ‘Kim Jong-Un‘ in place of Chinese leader ‘Xi Jinping’.
As a normal ritual, twitter was found trending with #HindiCheeniByeBye and #BharatVsChina throughout the day after the unfortunate news about Indian soldiers martyrdom.
People breaking a Chinese TV to bits was also one of the viral videos which came to everyone’s notice.
Despite Outstanding boycott calls,’No Affect on Sales ‘ ;
As per the Economic Times report, senior executives of Chinese Brands said that the business is as usual and there hasn’t been any impact on sales of goods.
Oppo’s Find X2 is expected to release on 27 June, while OnePlus is moving ahead to launch its TV next month. Redmi Note 9 pro is also scheduled for 23 June.
Chinese smartphones currently dominate the Indian market with more than 75% shares in sales. Chinese phones account for 8 out of every 10 smartphones sold in India.
The Chinese companies are tweaking unique strategies to appeal to Indian users;
Vivo India already ships its smartphones with a Made in India badge on the box. Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth through Youtube interaction event on 17 June, went ahead and called Realme an Indian startup which is now a global multinational company. Companies like Xiaomi and Poco have also been promoting their India first approach. However, Realme, Oppo, Xiaomi, and OnePlus are under the BBK Electronics Corporation, headquartered in China.
The Indian mobile Company Micromax has confirmed to make a comeback with three new budget smartphones under ₹ 10000. It seems Micromax does not want to lose this opportunity to cash in, with the help of “boycott-china” calls.
Although India is emerging as a global mobile manufacturer, “with more than 200 manufacturing units, India has become the 2nd Largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world” said IT minister Ravishankar Prasad on 1st June via tweet. However, a majority of hardware components i.e more than 50% are still Imported. These mostly include semiconductor devices (or IC) that are imported from China. According to data from the United Nations Comtrade (UN Comtrade) database, annual IC imports into India in 2018 jumped by 281 percent to $8 billion. In 2017, China was already the leading source of Indian IC imports, accounting for 30 percent of all Indian IC imports, and that share grew to 64 percent in 2018. There is still a lack of complete “Indian-ness” on the products being manufactured.
Moreover, with premium features and affordable prices, there is hardly any alternative to Chinese smartphones to cater to Indian’s needs.
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