A little two years ago, getting a smartphone with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage for Rs. 10,000 was a fool's errand, and today, we are left with a plethora of phones to choose in the same price segment boasting incredible specifications such as 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, etc. Well, first thumps to Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, LeEco, Lenovo, Coolpad for upping the ante and releasing the smartphones at near manufacturing cost.
At the start of every year, the segment gets updated with latest smartphones from vendors from the likes of Xiaomi, Lenovo, Huawei, Coolpad, etc. The South Korean smartphone giant, Samsung is also one of the pioneers in the same price segment and recently the company quoted that they managed to sell over 13 million units of Samsung Galaxy J2 (2016) and the phone has no chance against the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Xiaomi Redmi 3s, Lenovo K6 Power, LeEco Le 1s. But still, Samsung managed to outsmart the Chinese players, luckily.
The market is currently filled up with smartphones such as Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Motorola Moto G5 Plus, Lenovo K6 Power, LeEco Le 2, Coolpad Cool 1 Dual who offer similar specifications that are seen on Samsung and LG's upper mid-range phones priced more than twice. Indian consumers are always in a sweet affair with budget smartphones, and the companies are not disappointing them either with the phones. Some don't manage to impress the audience, whereas the others will be sold incredibly.
The flagship market in India is still bleak. There is a separate audience for Apple and Samsung, and they manage to sell their phones even at astounding price tags. The budget segment in India is the most demanding one right now or from the past one year or so.
For example, the trend in Indian telecom industry is now the VoLTE feature, which was first introduced in the country by the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio. That said, every smartphone releasing these days come with support for VoLTE, and brands market the product with the same VoLTE feature.
Take a look at Xiaomi as its recently launched Redmi 4A comes with the assistance for VoLTE and at a price tag of Rs. 5,999. Nonetheless, we have other phones in the same price tag, but still, the Xiaomi phone is way ahead of others.
When Google announced the Pixel and Pixel XL in India, the phones did not come with support for VoLTE, and it took almost two months for the search giant to add the feature via a software update. The Chinese players have made the segment of their own by adding the features that are required to the consumers, and if they continue to do so, the segment will get more complicated in the future.
Currently, the best smartphones under the Rs. 10,000 price bracket with VoLTE support are Xioami Redmi Note 4, Lenovo K6 Power, Xiaomi Redmi 3s/3s Prime, Motorola Moto G4 Play, Xiaomi Redmi 4A, and Moto E3 Power.
