Xiaomi, Samsung don't target undecided smartphone buyers

Gurugram, July 8: Chinese handset maker Xiaomi and South Korean tech major Samsung are focusing on users who are looking for smartphones within respective brands and not the ones who are undecided, a new report said on Monday.

Both the smartphone players are also focusing on users who are looking for smartphones with a decided mind. The share of voice or SOV of Xiaomi is 67 per cent and 47 per cent for Samsung, said market research firm by techARC in its "Digital and E-Commerce SOV insights for Smartphones" report.

Share of voice in online advertising is an ad revenue model that focuses on weight or percentage among other advertisers.

When users are searching for smartphones using generic keywords (where the user hasn't made up the mind), other brands (non-Samsung and Xiaomi) had a combined SOV of 38 per cent.

Samsung and Xiaomi have no presence in the digital advertising results for such keywords. As a result, people who are looking for any smartphone end up landing at advertisements of other brands.

"E-commerce is becoming an overcrowded space for smartphones and it becomes very important for their digital marketing teams to play their cards well.

"They ought to ensure that they are prominently and adequately present when a buyer is looking for a smartphone," said Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst, techARC.

E-commerce portals like Amazon and Flipkart enjoy 42 per cent SOV in case of generic keywords, helping other brands to come into the zone of consideration of prospect buyers.

techARC produced this report along with mFilterIt, a global digital fraud detection prevention company