What people look out for when buying a smartphone

Multimedia,games and apps,video chat and instant messaging are among the top preferences

TM Ramakrishnan

With the ever changing dynamics of consumer behaviour,manu- facturers have always been on their toes trying to match the expectations of the consumers. While in todays competitive environment,there is not much difference in the offering,it is still the consumer who dictates exactly where the manufacturer needs to focus.

It has become imperative for the manufacturers to understand the purchase behaviour of the consumers in order to fulfill their expectations. While this holds true across industries,the mobile devices industrysmartphones category in particular,is among the most volatile. So what exactly does a prospective consumer base his decision on before buying a smartphone?

The consumer base is divided into two groupsthose who wish to migrate from a feature phone to a smartphone and those who wish to upgrade to a better smartphone. Those consumers who aspire to migrate to smartphones are generally unaware of the capabilities of the device and end up putting in little research before purchase. On the other hand,consumers who have already used a smartphone are better placed to make a more informed decision.

Almost all smartphone players today offer similar looks,features and pricing. While this does confuse the consumer,there are a few basic points smartphone buyers evaluate before buying. Smartphones come in various sizes ranging from 3.2 inches to 6.1 inches. While phablets (5 inches to 6.1 inches) are in demand currently,choosing the right size

entirely depends on the individual consumer. Larger screen sizes are being preferred as it is easy to use though you may not be able to manage it in one hand.

The performance of your smartphone depends heavily on the speed of the processor used. While the smartphone industry has lived through the below single core processor era,the current norm sees processors ranging from single core to dual core to quad core. Very soon,we may also have 8 core processors in the market. A stronger processor will give the best performance.

Most of the smartphones come with in-built storage capacity

Story continues below this ad

between 4 GB to 64 GB along with an expandable memory option up to 64 GB through an SD card. If you want to store a lot of movies and other heavy files,larger memory capacity will be the right choice. Generally,a smartphone with an internal storage of 16 GB and expandable slot of another 32 GB is quite sufficient.

Depending on the use of the smartphone,the battery capacity,measured in mAh,or milliamp-hoursneeds to be strong. The processor speed,number of applications running on the device at one given time and size and technology of the display among other factors,determines the battery life of a smartphone. The norm currently for a 4.5 inch screen smartphone is between 2500 mAh to 3000 mAh.

Before buying a smartphone,consumers should know what each of the available operating software platforms available in the market are capable of. Whether you are using an Android,Apple,Windows or BlackBerry,you will want to know what each operating system can do for you because they define the user experience. The OS also dictates the amount and quality of apps available. Currently,the smartphone market is dominated by the Android OS.

For a price sensitive market like ours,price of the smartphone is a big factor while deciding where to put your money. But as the consumer base gets evolved and informed,price point drops down in the ranks while making a decision,giving higher importance to other features like,processor,size,battery,operating system,and memory etc. Smartphones today,range anywhere between R4,000 to R50,000.

Story continues below this ad

Looking at the recent trends from different sources,India is set to see phenomenal demand of the smartphone devices in future. The growth is being driven by a desire amongst users to stay connected while on-the-goa trend that mirrors the behaviour of global consumers. A general drift which has been observed is that voice and text communication is not a major contributor for smartphone usage.

Customer is looking for multimedia,games and apps,video chat and instant messaging amongst others. From the recent trends,we can infer that consumers are looking for more flexible OS (Android) and prefer social media applications,different apps and faster streaming (data and video) for zeroing on their smartphone purchase.

The writer is CEODevices Business,S Mobility