Flipkart & Amazon India tap user data to build smartphones

BENGALURU: When Flipkart and Amazon India decided to launch their own brands of smartphones, they had a distinct advantage: exclusive insights into the minds of their customers. Smartphones make for the highest revenue-generating category for both the ecommerce companies, allowing them to gather volumes of data on what customers look for in the devices, what they like or dislike.

Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal, who heads its in-house brand 'Billion', had a clear vision for the company’s first branded smartphone when he approached Indian smartphone maker Smartron a year ago to create phones 'for' Indians, 'in' India. The company collated customer ratings and reviews and conducted intensive research to zero-in on features such as free unlimited data storage for India users, all of which ultimately defined its Billion Capture Plus smartphone. It was launched in November. "Indians watch a lot of content on their phones and receive massive amounts of pictures and videos on WhatsApp regularly," said Hrishikesh Thite, category head for Billion. "This led to us providing unlimited cloud storage for free on secure India-based servers."

Customer reviews also highlighted the need to not compromise on processors, include quick charge capability, long battery life of nearly two days, and cameras with an ability to capture more colour detail given India’s wide palette.

Amazon India, which has launched three models of its smartphone '10.or' (Tenor) under the 'Crafted for Amazon' label, conducted about 960 tests, including figuring the height from which a phone can be dropped without causing critical damage.

"The industry standard is one metre, but we decided to increase it to 1.5 metres," said Noor Patel, director of category management at Amazon India. Other tests were on enhancing battery life and safety studies.

The teams also adopted traditional research methods such as focus groups as well as offline research. "We sent teams to offline stores to understand what customers were looking for," said Patel.

The phones are currently manufactured by two Chinese companies, Huaqin and Longcheer, with the prototypes being assembled in China. Amazon said it is considering a plan to move the manufacturing to India very soon.

Experts believe that launching a smartphone in India presents some difficulties, especially for companies such as Flipkart and Amazon India that already have a large customer base and an established brand. However, scaling this up would be an uphill task.

"Currently, 10.or is performing better due to its lower price range of ?5,000-7,000, which offers value for money with its specifications," said Karn Chauhan, research analyst at Counterpoint. "While Billion Capture Plus also has good specifications, there are several other phones under different brands that are available within the same price range of Rs 11,000-13,000."