Smartphone sales decline 10% in India for H1 2023, says IDC
Here is your daily dose of key developments from the technology world of India.
India smartphone market declines by 10% in first half of 2023
The smartphone market in India shipped 64 million units for the first half of 2023, which was a 10% decline when compared to a similar period last year, according to Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker of International Data Corporation.
In the second quarter of 2023, the market grew by 10% over the previous quarter but declined by 3% year-on-year (YoY) with 34 million units. The vendors and channels focused on clearing the inventory by offering discounts, special schemes, and price drops before the start of the festive season in the second half of the year.
After several quarters of growth, the ASP (average selling price) declined by 8% QoQ but grew by 13% YoY, reaching $241 in 2Q23. The share of the sub-$200 segment declined to 65% from 70% a year ago, a dip of 11% YoY. The mid-range segment ($200-$400) remained flat with a 22% share, while the mid-to-high-end segment ($400-$600) with a 5% share, grew by 34% YoY in 2Q23. The premium segment ($600+) grew the highest, up 75% YoY reaching 9% share.
“Consumers are opting for premium offerings, driven by easy and affordable financing options. IDC expects this growth momentum to continue in the upcoming months in 2023,” said Upasana Joshi, Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.
Cognizant records 19% decline in net profit in Q2
Cognizant, one of the leading IT services companies, recorded a net profit of $463 million for the second quarter (April-June) period of 2023—a 19% year-on-year (YoY) decline. The revenue during this period dipped marginally by 0.4% to reach $4.89 billion.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the company saw its revenue rise by 1.7% but net profit declined by 20%. The headcount of Cognizant for the second quarter stood at 3,45,600 employees, which was a sequential decline of 5,900. For the third quarter, the company has projected revenue in the range of $4.89-4.94 billion.
Salesforce unveils new tech platform for sales community
Global CRM software company Salesforce has announced the general availability of Slack Sales Elevate. Built on Slack’s platform and powered by their Salesforce data, Slack Sales Elevate is expected to boost the productivity of companies and help sales teams work.
Slack Sales Elevate will centralise information, simplify processes, and automate administrative tasks. Sales teams are under pressure to be more productive and drive revenue while meeting customer expectations. Sales reps are bogged down in administrative work and cumbersome tools. As a result, they spend more than 70% of their time on non-selling tasks.
The features of Slack Sales Elevate include a high degree of customisation with KPIs to track progress, it configures automatic notifications to stay abreast on deals win, new opportunities, pipeline updates, and AI-powered no-code workflows to support requests and deal approvals etc.
Infosys gets top ranking in 5G index
has been positioned as a leader for the second consecutive year in the Everest Group’s 5G Engineering Services PEAK Matrix Assessment 2023. Infosys has been distinguished for its marquee projects, key thought leadership initiatives, and consistent focus on use-case development.
For the assessment, Everest Group evaluated 20 engineering service providers based on their capabilities, interactions with 5G engineering leadership, client reference checks, and an overall analysis of the engineering services market.
The specific Infosys strengths listed in the report include a balanced portfolio of services across the entire 5G engineering services value chain, the equipment, network, and solution engineering services, Strong revenue growth, good delivery mix, core competency and optimum pricing models among others.
Bharti Airtel launches self-serve marcom platform
Bharti Airtel, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, has launched Airtel IQ Reach, a self-serve marketing communications platform, which will enable brands/companies to drive targeted customer engagements through personalised communications.
According to a statement, Airtel IQ Reach is an intuitive platform that will enable small and medium businesses to make the most of their marketing investments as they engage with target customers in a cost-effective manner with prepaid pay-as-you-go plans. It claimed that this self-serve portal can be used for designing customised messages, uploading or selecting their target audiences, scheduling their messages and, finally, tracking campaign effectiveness among others.
The platform will also offer real-time insights and comprehensive analytics on a centralised dashboard with the aim of enabling businesses to measure their campaign effectiveness.
Edited by Kanishk Singh