Panasonic to Launch Sanyo Branded Smartphones in India in 2017

The Indian smartphone market is the second largest next to China in terms of user base. In the coming years, we can only expect the numbers to increase faster than ever. Thanks to the Chinese smartphone brands, the users are now getting a better build smartphone with more than decent specifications under Rs. 10,000. From the last couple of years, we have seen a drastic decrease in the price of smartphones. The growing penetration of online shopping is also a key factor for the increase in smartphone sales. The online exclusive devices come with a slightly lower price tag as the there is middleman commissions or the store expenses.

While Panasonic is still a smaller player in the smartphone market, it has a good offline presence like the well-established players like Samsung. Gionee, OPPO, and Vivo are also investing heavily in the offline markets since the online sales are much lower when compared to the offline sales. The other Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Coolpad, OnePlus, and LeEco are mostly limited to just online stores. Panasonic has already started selling Sanyo-branded TVs in the Indian market. Starting from 2017, Sanyo will also launch its own smartphones. More importantly, the Sanyo smartphones will be limited to just online stores.

In December 2014, Micromax announced the YU Televentures as the online only smartphone brand. Motorola is the first smartphone brand in India to sell exclusively via online stores. It has then launched the Moto E and Moto G smartphones on Flipkart and later most of the Chinese brands also followed the same path. But with the increased competition in the online segment, online exclusive brands are also trying to sell their smartphones in the online market.Talking about the Sanyo smartphones, they will be available on all the major online stores in India.

If the Sanyo has done well with the TV and smartphones, then the company will launch more products under the new brand name. As of now, the Sanyo TVs are available on Amazon India, and it has some competition from the brands like LeEco, VU, and TCL  who also sells their TVs exclusively through online stores. While the Sanyo is one of the oldest brands in the consumer electronics segment, let’s see how it does as an online exclusive brand in India.

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