Micromax vs Xiaomi: Can Indian brand take over Chinese ruler with new strategy?

The Chinese mobile manufacturers have taken the Indian market by storm and their dominance continues to outgrow local Indian players' presence. Brands like Xiaomi witnessed record growth in the country, which is poised to become the largest market after China, and taken over market leader Samsung and shrunk local brands' market share in recent quarters.

Micromax, once the leader of Indian smartphone market, is no longer a controlling a sizable share in the market. Between 2015 and 2017, Micromax lost a close to 14 percent market share, and Chinese mobile players acquired four out of top five ranks while Samsung managed to hold on to its top rank among rivals.

Micromax lost a great deal as Chinese companies forayed with their aggressive pricing and feature-packed smartphones into India. But after several setbacks, Micromax is once again trying to crawl back into the big league competition. To begin with, Micromax has revived its online sub-brand YU Mobiles after a year and it plans to keep it that way.

YU's all-new Ace smartphone takes on Xiaomi's affordable Redmi-series and the company was quite obvious about it. The tagline for the Yu Ace was "Forget Mi. YU Decide," which is quite clear that the Indian brand is hell-bent on taking out its biggest rival Xiaomi in India.

It looks like YU Ace was one of many moves Micromax has up its sleeve. Speaking to The Mobile Indian, Micromax India's chief marketing and commercial officer Subhodip Pal said that the company has plans to launch 13 new smartphones by the end of March 2019. These new phones will be under both YU and Micromax branding.

"Every 40 day you will find a new product from our sister brand Yu, making a total of 5 models by the end of March 31, 2019. Apart from that, we will launch 7 to 8 models with Micromax branding in the same timeline," Pal said.

Pal also revealed that the next Micromax smartphone will be released in time for Diwali on September 20. As for YU, the next smartphone will be priced higher than the Ace smartphone, between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000, with upgraded Around YU service.

Finally, Pal said Micromax is "ready to snatch" the market share from Xiaomi, which according to him has a strong product lineup but weak marketing. Micromax is looking to prey on its rivals' weakness and its own strengths.

In the meantime, Xiaomi is planning to launch its all-new Redmi 6-series in India for under Rs 10,000. The official launch of the new budget smartphones from Xiaomi is set for September 5, which is when all the details such as features, pricing and availability, will be revealed.