NEW DELHI: After Vivo and Xiaomi, Samsung India is now offering customers the option to book their smartphones online and getting the handset delivered by neighbourhood retail stores.
Samsung India has partnered with Benow for the initiative that enables consumers to buy Galaxy smartphones from their neighbourhood stores online, Samsung said in a statement on Thursday.
The new digital platform will also help thousands of offline retailers become part of the online ecosystem and reach out to a larger base of consumers, and over 20,000 offline retailers have already signed up, it said.
"At Samsung, the consumer is at the core of everything we do. Our partnership with Benow is part of our broader online to offline (O2O) strategy and is aimed to provide benefits of both offline and online platforms to the consumer," Samsung India Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Mohandeep Singh said.
With this new platform, consumers will be able to browse, select, order, pay and receive their Galaxy smartphone from the comfort of their homes, he added "This will ensure that our consumers don't have to step out to a physical store at a time when social distancing is the new normal. At the same time, the new platform enables thousands of physical retailers to connect with local customers online," Singh said.
In a separate statement, OPPO said it has undertaken a similar initiative allowing customers to place orders through WhatsApp and SMS and getting contactless home delivery of the devices.
After 40 days of lockdown, certain business activities like opening of standalone stores and e-commerce delivery of non-essential items have been allowed in Green and Orange zones (locations with few or no COVID-19 cases).
With resumption in sales in select locations, Vivo and Xiaomi had announced their plans to help connect consumers and offline retail stores via digital platforms.
Smartphone shipment in the country is expected to decline by 10 per cent in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, even though the January-March quarter saw smartphone shipment growing at modest 4 per cent with over 31 million units, according to Counterpoint Research.
Xiaomi led the market with 30 per cent share of the smartphone shipment, followed by Vivo (17 per cent), Samsung (16 per cent), Realme (14 per cent) and Oppo (12 per cent) in the first quarter. The research firm had said "any signs of recovery will likely only start from the third quarter onwards".