Microsoft is building a pipeline of fourth-generation smartphones to be launched in India around the
year-end, and is banking on Windows 10-based devices to make a mark in the highly competitive mobile market where it is rapidly losing ground.
By 2015-end, the company, which acquired Nokia’s handset division last year for $7.2 billion, will also start rolling out the latest Windows 10 operating system for its existing smartphones, which the company reckons would help it grow market share in India, Ajey Mehta, country manager, Microsoft Mobile Devices, told ET.
Microsoft currently has only one dual-band 4G smartphone, Lumia 638. It has enabled seven of its smartphones with 4G capability through a software upgrade, but these models support only one band of 4G – FDDLTE on 1800 Mhz. Airtel offers service on this band in some circles.
The upcoming phones will support both existing 4G bands TDD using 2300 Mhz and FDD which will be used by Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are also expected to launch FDD-LTE 4G services over the next few months.
“We will soon roll out the LTE version of Lumia 640XL. All of our future 4G devices will support all types of 4G services in India,” Mehta said, adding that the company is preparing to bring the new devices to the market by Diwali. Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi and Lenovo have already cornered a major chunk of the fast growing 4G smartphone segment.
The 4G handsets aside, Mehta said the biggest initiative for the company will be phones that run on its latest Windows 10 OS. The company also plans to roll out a slew of Microsoft services and applications.
Microsoft’s smartphone market share in India declined to 3.2% in the second quarter from 4.1% a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. Samsung leads the market. The company has divided the smartphone opportunity into three segments of users existing Windows customers, enterprise and price sensitive customers.
Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint, said Microsoft will need a robust device launch strategy which shouldn’t be specific to OS differentiation alone but also control the other variables in the ecosystem too. “In entry to mid-level smartphone segment, it will try to position itself as an alternative to Android by providing adifferentiated experience, but then in reality it won’t be just competing with Android but with various vendors offering stock and forked Android experience, including the likes of Motorola, Xiaomi and Cyanogen,” he said.
Enterprise is the fastest growing segment for Microsoft Mobile Devices. With Windows 10, which comes with security and management elements, Mehta said that the brand would be able to better serve the needs of customers in the enterprise space.
The handset maker is planning to develop need-specific customized applications and solutions, which it would provide with smartphones. “We also have universal apps that can work across form factors and can be leveraged by enterprises as well. We are going to maximum our sales in coming months,” he said.
The company has launched 11 Lumia smartphones since July last year. Lumia 535, the first Microsoft branded smartphone, is one of the best-selling smartphones for the company, according to industry analysts.
Apart from smartphones, Microsoft continues to bet big on feature phone segment in India. Mehta said that feature phones continues to bring high volumes for the company and plays an important role in bringing the Windows experie
nces to the next billion.
The company has just introduced the Nokia 222 and Nokia 222 Dual SIM-two new Internet-enabled feature phones that come with Instant Messaging (IM) version of Skype. Mehta said that the company wants to extend more Microsoft services to feature phones.