It’s been said that Samsung has struggled with its smartphone marketshare in India, seeing that the country requires more affordable handsets than Samsung usually sells at rock-bottom prices. There are times when Samsung has released a so-called affordable smartphone and some tech analysts shake their heads and think, “Samsung has missed the boat again.” Local vendors have often been more successful at selling extremely budget-conscious smartphones because they also know how to connect with customers on a basic level. Samsung has struggled with that, but it’s a better struggle to have than failing at high-end smartphone sales.
The Tizen-powered Z1, however, has started shaking things up a bit, so much so that the company’s having something of a comeback in Bangladesh. While local vendor Symphony Mobile is still sitting atop the Bangladesh smartphone market with an extremely comfortable position (36.6% of mobile phone shipment marketshare and 38% of smartphone shipment share in Q1 2015), Samsung’s Z1 has now become the top smartphone model in Bangladesh through all of Q1 2015 according to market research analyst firm Counterpoint. This is a rather impressive feat when you consider that Symphony Mobile’s best-selling smartphone model costs around $60 USD while Samsung’s Z1 costs somewhere around $92 USD without discounts.
Samsung India also said earlier this week that the Z1, running its own Tizen OS, has sold 500,000 models in India so far. While 500,000 units may not seem like much compared to the company's 10 million Galaxy S6 sales, for example, 500,000 units sold can still “arm-wrestle” with a number of well-known Android manufacturers who reach this milestone with high-end Android devices after six months.
Samsung’s now has 7.2% of mobile phone shipments in the country for Q1, and 23.4% of smartphone shipment marketshare for the quarter, giving the Korean manufacturer an overall second place position in the Bangladesh market. In a market where most assume that cheaper is better, some consumers are using their currency to make the case that this simply isn’t true.
