Galaxy M sale to go past 20mln units by Dec 2020, says Samsung India Senior VP Asim Warsi

Galaxy M series has turned out to be a big success story for Samsung which had been looking to regain its dominance in the budget segment. Here is a brief report card on Samsung’s budget smartphone series.

Samsung Galaxy M21 (Hindustan Times)

Samsung will have sold more than 20 million units of Galaxy M phones by the end of this year, said Samsung India Senior Vice President Asim Warsi during an ‘Ask Me Anything' session with select media on Thursday.

“We expect to close out in excess of $3.5 billion worth of GMV across merchandise, sales of M series in India. Which means, it's over 20 million devices in the time of under two years which the M series alone would have clocked,” Warsi said at the session.

Samsung had introduced Galaxy M as an India-first smartphone series in January last year. Primarily focused on the younger generation, Samsung Galaxy M phones targeted the budget segment, which is ₹10,000 to ₹20,000.

Since the announcement, Samsung has launched multiple Galaxy M phones across different price points. Its recent phone Galaxy M51 costs ₹24,999, also the most expensive Galaxy M phone in India thus far.

Warsi further said that the average selling price (ASP) of Galaxy M phones in India has grown by 50% in the second half of the year.

While the Galaxy M series started as an online-focused product lineup, it has been rolled out for offline customers as well. Warsi said that the series has fared well in both online and offline channels.

“It's doing very well on both the channels. I think we are just able to keep the demand for it. Especially once market and business opened up and our channels opened up, post the lockdown period. There has been an enormous effort across the global supply chain, partners, our supply partners, and our production facility in India, here in Noida. In fact, everybody has worked overtime to try and catch up as best as we could towards the demand of M series. I think in some cases/periods for some models we were able to meet and in some model, we even missed in fact, because the demand was in excess of supply and this is true in our both offline and online channels. So, yes its doing very well in both channels," he told Hindustan Times.

Asim Warsi is hopeful Galaxy M series will continue to do well in India (Samsung)

Asim Warsi is hopeful Galaxy M series will continue to do well in India (Samsung)

“Given the nature of the M series it is designed for the online shoppers and our partners which is Amazon as well as Samsung.com our own e-store, these two constitute the dominant part of our series in terms of being a channel. These are the dominant sales channel for M series presently for us,” he added.

The senior Samsung executive revealed that the company has also exported made in India Galaxy M phones.

“Export of M series is always going on while our factories were busy trying to meet the India demand but in some periods we have even exported out of our India factory while there is M being made in other factories as well, overseas. So that's more a dynamic thing on where which factory is able to support demand for which country and at what time but yes our India plant has been outsourcing for M series,” he added.

It is worth noting that Galaxy M phones have played a crucial role in staging Samsung's comeback in the budget segment. According to Counterpoint Research, Samsung owned 26% of shipment market share as of Q2 2020. Xiaomi (including Poco) had slightly better share at 29% and ranked number.

The research firm in its quarterly tracker noted that Samsung had recovered fastest as it had reached 94% of pre-Covid levels.

“Revamping the M-series and launching it in offline channels together with new schemes like Samsung Care+ helped the brand to further to restore its position in the Indian market. Samsung also has a diversified supply chain compared to its competitors, which helped it to maintain a steady flow of components. It was the first brand to reach almost full manufacturing capacity by the end of June,” the report.