Andrew Williams
The giant companies that make the phones in our pockets have a problem. They have several, actually.
Capitalism’s lifeblood, growth, is slowing. Returning, and reinforced, Trump tariffs may significantly increase the costs of doing business. And there’s a question mark over whether any normal folks really care about the latest ruse to get people upgrading—AI in phones.
One potential solution addresses at least a couple of these areas: India.
The US and UK are desiccated husks compared to India. Smartphone penetration percentages are already in the 90s in the West. They’re tapped out. Meanwhile, India is on track to become the world’s third-largest economy according to Morgan Stanley, and there are hundreds of millions of future customers to be converted.
“There's no other market of the size which still has about 50 percent penetration, about half a billion people without a smartphone. So there's a lot of room for growth,” says Navkendar Singh, IDC India’s associate vice president of devices research.
In one important sense, though, India is quite different from key Western markets, because the phone isn’t just a complement to other devices like a home PC or laptop. It’s often the only device a person uses day to day.
No comments:
Post a Comment