Bangladesh is emerging as one of the fastest growing mobile telephony markets across the globe. For many years, the Bangladesh mobile handsets market was dominated by ‘grey’ mobiles, which contributed 80% of the total handset shipments in the country. Nokia, which was a leader in Bangladesh lost market share with the growth of the domestic player, Symphony Mobile.
In the October-December 2012 quarter alone, around 4.5 million mobile handsets were shipped in the Bangladesh market, of which Symphony Mobile accounted for over 40% share. Within a span of just five years, Symphony Mobile has out-powered international giants like Nokia, Samsung etc.
Symphony Mobile’s unique offerings and first-mover advantage have given the firm a distinct competitive edge. For instance, Symphony Mobile was the first company which launched branded dual-SIM mobile handsets in the Bangladesh market. Apart from this, Symphony Mobile was also the first brand which launched that country’s first QWERTY keyboard phone, with trackball (the Symphony X110).
These offerings have made Symphony Mobile very popular with the Bangladesh youth segment. Another USP of Symphony Mobile can be seen is their competitive pricing structure. A Symphony Mobile handset starts from just Tk 1,100 and goes up to Tk 19,990.
Symphony Mobile’s high end phone, the Xplorer W100 (Tk 19,900), is loaded with a host of advanced technologies, which are generally not seen in handsets of the company’s international competitors. Xplorer W100 boasts of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) OS, has a 4.3 inch AMOLED screen, and 8 MP main camera, a 0.3 MP front camera, a 1 GHz processor, 512/512 MB RAM/ROM, proximity sensors, accelerometer, gravity sensor, magnetic field sensor, light sensor, Wi-Fi, GPS etc.
Symphony Mobile has established customer care centres in all major districts of Bangladesh and collection points in the smaller districts in order to ensure prompt and reliable service to customers based in remote / upcountry locations.
These strengths have not only won for the company the hearts of the Bangladesh consumer, but also catapulted Symphony Mobile to a leadership position vis-à-vis international giants.
This only goes to show that innovation in features, pocket-friendly pricing, lean distribution and customer intimacy are the true ingredients of success in a tough, economically challenging global business environment.
