Mobiistar conveys to its target group - "We fill your life with shine"

A Vietnamese brand targeting the population in tier 2 and 3, Mobiistar has always prioritised is the consumer demand. It provides updated features at an affordable price. The brand followed three pillars to enter India market – opened 1000 service centres, setup plant in the country and the company decides which components will be there in the next product. In a chat with VARINDIA, Aniruddha Deb, CMO, Mobiistar India discusses about the potential of India market, go-to-market strategy, online and offline strategy, verticals, brand campaigns etc.

Aniruddha Deb
Chief Marketing Officer, Mobiistar India

What potential did you see in India market?

Mobiistar is a Vietnamese smartphone company. It was established in 2009. It was launched in Vietnam through a lot of digital content because Vietnam believes and consumes a lot of digital content through social media platforms. And it achieved success, it was in the top 3 brands and it has always maintained its position in the top 3 or top 5 brands in Vietnam. So, the brand decided to come to India, although it is and will be a cluttered market in India specifically, but Mobiistar caught two clear potential when they entered in India. First potential is obvious which is why we keep getting more and more brands in India i.e.

a.) Even today more than 50% of the population uses a feature phone. So, the potential of the smartphone still can be doubled as we move forward. The simple maths here is if you convert every feature phone user into a smartphone user, half the country is still a potential market for the smartphone industry. No other country gives you this much market potential like India. What I mean to say is that across most of the country the percentage of smartphone users is so high of the total population, you can't convert but replace the feature with a smartphone.

b.) Whereas in India we have both, we have the potential to convert a feature phone user into a smartphone user and also replace his current smartphone.

So, these were the two reasons why there was a clear potential for us.

The other thing we probably did right before entering the Indian market is that we decided where do we come in, again in India you have smartphones from 5000 rupees to 1 lakh rupees. A clear decision was taken that the biggest gap from a consumer stand point is that whole smaller town, the greater India as we call it i.e. tier 1, 2, 3 who are slowly getting into the smartphone and the internet world. The kind of smartphone they are able to use are very ordinary and are not able to provide great features, for great features you have to pay more. That is the basic market insight we at Mobiistar tapped into and we came in with a clear indication and a clear agenda that we will give those people who can’t afford the features that they are seeing everywhere in ads of competitors, so consumers know that today your smartphone has selfie camera etc. but the amount of money in the consumers pocket with that they can’t afford it so they buy an ordinary smartphone with the budget they have, which gives them a five Mega Pixel selfie camera, a very basic look of the phone. But the difference is there are other affordable smartphone players also and they all made the same mistake that they gave phones at a very cheap rate without any good features as the target consumer is aspiring for something better that is something different.

In today's date we have entered under Rs 10,000, and if I take all the competing brands and keep them on the table, obviously we are a new brand it will take some time for people to get over other brands, when customers see that from Rs 4000 to 8000 our smartphone brand gives great design, look, screen, the Mega Pixel provided in the selfie camera with AI, which is actually better. So, the point again is that brands are created like this, one obviously, you can throw a lot of money as our Chinese competitors have done, but the other way to do it is to constantly give value proposition on your product.

We at Mobiistar also call ourselves trend spotters and not trendsetters. Like notch display, water drop display, selfie AI etc. these are all new trends. we don’t want to come out as the first one to give any such trend. But we will spot the trend that in today’s time if the latest trend is water drop display which comes above Rs 15000, we will give that same water drop display at Rs 7000 to our consumers.

What is the go-to-market for Mobiistar?

Our brand Mobiistar actually launched in India in August 2018, that's when we did the offline Launch, retail launch. We did a couple of things before offline launch, we got our plant in partnership with Vsun in India so that we don't wait to see if we will have success or not. So, we planned three things or pillars. First pillar- 1000 service centres before the launch which are third party. But to create that infrastructure before we did our offline launch. Second pillar is we setup our plant at Bawal, Haryana in partnership with Vsun, and we have an assembly here.

So basically, the other interesting thing is that with our parts we can decide what components will be there in the next product. Other advantage is, let’s say we will be launching our next phone, usually, brands have difficulties when they make the phone beforehand then they think about how to market the phone. This problem has repeated itself many times with our competitors. This is the main reason that brands do not manufacture products seeing their customers, rather make the phone and take it to the customers. So, our model is we import parts and assemble the product here. So when we launch our next phone we will spot the new trend which is going on now and at which price point are our competitors providing the device and what our customers actually want with those inputs and analysis we will manufacture and give what all features like Mega Pixel to be provided in the camera, what will be the screen size, will there be fingerprint sensors or not at that price point, with these decisions we will import components and manufacture the smartphones.

After the service centre and manufacturing plant, our full focus went to the distribution of the product. In fact, more than marketing, brand building and TV Ads we first setup the distribution of the products. We wanted to spread our product Pan-India, in smaller towns, tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 cities etc. and that became our focus. So, we launched our phones in smaller cities first and metro's last. That is why now we can say that we have reached approximately 640 distributors, 37000 multi-brand retail outlets. In fact, the market is 1,05,000 out of those we are already present in 37000 outlets. And in the next six months, our goal is to be present in more than 50000 multi-brand outlets Pan- India, it’s a challenge but we will achieve it.

What is the sales force you have?

We have more than 2000 employees which are of two types. One is off-role and second is on-role. So, 450 people are on-role employees and remaining 1550 are off-role employees.

Now that was the most important thing for us that how do we get the distribution right, strong because ultimately our target group which is under Rs 10000 will see the phone online, but 75% of people who buy phones under Rs 10000 will buy offline, they do not buy online.

What is your target - Online or Offline sales?

Offline is the target, we do sell online but our target is offline as I said earlier that, 75% of people who buy phones under Rs 10000 will buy offline. So, if in that target group 75% of the people are buying a smartphone offline then why should we chase 30% of the target group buying online.

What is the price difference when you sell in both online and offline markets?

The price difference is not much at all. Maximum the difference will be of Rs 500 or lesser. Now why consumers don't avail that Rs 500 discount on an online transaction is because, the retailer will have a special bond with the customers. Also, the maximum frequency of changing phone is highest is under the price band of Rs 10000.

How do they manage the price?

See due to new policies recently rolled out by the Government, has made many of our big competitors to realize that the game which was there in the online market is no longer beneficial and hence the competitors are selling their products offline as well.

Now competitors have also recognized the target group where they will find maximum growth is under Rs 10000 price band. And half the population of India has not adopted smartphones and when they do it will also come under the Rs 10000 band. But the big difference between a feature phone and a smartphone is just one thing i.e. when he realizes that he wants entertainment then he will want a smartphone. So, in our target group, we found consumers don't have ample time to watch Television.

The Chinese competitors are having different brands under one family who are selling their smartphones at every price band. How are you competing the price factor?

The good news for us is that all our Chinese competitors when they entered India they were all OEM's and soon they started their own brands and focused on providing the best features to the consumers at an affordable rate and compete with other already set bigger brands in the market. But all their focus was above Rs 10000 price band. Although they had phones under Rs 10000, they were never really focused on this segment. They concentrated mostly above the Rs 10000 price band.

When we entered, we realized that there was a huge gap in the under Rs 10000 price band. There was no smartphone competing in Rs 4000 to 6000 price band. Hence, we started providing the consumer options in this price band strongly.

Which are the major markets for Mobiistar in India?

So we started our launch in the Southern region of India, so it is one of the major markets for us. However, since now we are present pan India, the strength of our market is exactly as the strength of the industry which means states like U.P, West Bengal, Maharashtra are the biggest market for smartphone same as us. So, when you are present pan India your business will be as good as the industries business. So, we have reached that level.

What are the brand campaigns Mobiistar is looking at in the next 1 Year?

After the distribution was set up, we started our brand story. A brand story with which we have been successful in conveying to our consumers that we are a brand which is not about celebrities, we are not a brand in which dreams are not fulfilled. So, whatever our campaigns and advertisements have been we have always put our target group in them because our brand has one thing to do from a target group point of view, which our product conveys, is that “we fill your life with shine”.

Just because our target group are residing in tier 2 or tier 3 cities or are not rich, that doesn’t mean they cannot shine in their lives. We add shine to their lives by providing them with products which are affordable but will have great features. So, this has been the brand story and we have run two campaigns on this as well. Now moving forward, this year we will have at least three campaigns in the whole year. All these three campaigns will be based on product launches and brand. So, we will have campaigns for where we launch our products and we will also have campaigns to build our brand story. So, in the next nine months, we will have three campaigns this year.