Indians don’t care about megapixels while buying phones: Survey

The megapixel war unleashed by the smartphone makers which focuses primarily on rear cameras is unlikely to win them much customers in the India market as people here are more concerned about the quality of their selfie camera, suggests a new survey on Saturday.

While it is true that cameras are the number one consideration for consumers while buying a new smartphone, 79% of the consumers in the sub-₹30,000 price band believe that image quality is not dependent on the number of megapixels, said the survey by CyberMedia Research (CMR).

In fact, 60% of smartphone users, in the price band of ₹20,000-₹30,000, feel front camera is more important than rear camera, according to the "CMR Insights on the Go Survey".

"What the survey insights provides us with, is a compelling picture of a classic conundrum. While smartphone brands focus on increasing the megapixel capabilities of the rear camera, consumer priorities, in the sub-30k segment, are elsewhere," Prabhu Ram, Head- Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, said in a statement.

"Consumers believe that the image quality is not dependent on megapixels. For them, the selfie should be picture-perfect, and that's what really matters," he added.

Smartphones in the sub-₹30,000 price band constitute one of the most prominent price segments where 85% of India's consumers make their smartphone purchase. About 64% of the consumers in the survey said they feel the front camera is more important than the rear camera.

Interestingly, one in every three users stated the poor quality of the front camera as a dissatisfaction factor with their smartphone. When it comes to taking selfies in low light conditions, smartphone users are generally not satisfied with the results. They believe smartphone brands should bring innovations that make the selfie picture-perfect, under all conditions.

The survey involved 600 smartphone owners across top six Indian cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.