It was always on the cards but I did not expect it to act so quickly. With a price that competes with iPhone, Samsung knew that they were in dangerous waters. They have rectified the mistake and the phone which was priced at over Rs. 51000 is now under Rs. 47000.
This might be the fastest price cut for a flagship phone but it was almost necessary for Samsung and not just for the sale of the phone.
On Flipkart Samsung S5 is now available for Rs. 46,450!
First and the most important point is that the phone offers nothing exciting except the fingerprint scanner and at its price, it offers nothing new, period.
While I am sure that it is the first phone from Samsung with fingerprint scanner and water and dust resistance, both iPhone and Xperia Z series are giving these qualities to their phone.
The camera of 16 MP is an old news and screen size are of no consequence with phones under Rs. 10000 flaunting 5”. This means that anyone holding a previous generation flagship phone in hand will ask- “Why S5?” and would not have a convincing answer.
Second is that S5 has two variants and the one having the mouth-watering LTE capabilities has been kept away from the Indian hands. It is not here and while most people might not need it now (lack of Pan-India 4G network), the prospects of it reaching to many people within next 2 years are good and in long term, people are upset about this fact.
Also, it is a simple case of knowing there is a better version out there with similar price range. While for a Rs. 10K phone, people might not bother about this but when you are buying a phone pricier than a laptop, flaunting is an integral part of it. If it is not even the best phone in the family what chance does it have to lure users.
Third point is image. There is a difference between looking arrogant and looking foolish. When Apple says its phone is Rs. 50,000, it sounds arrogant. Mind you, it is not selling its phones easily as well and is looking at various methods to attract people. However, when Samsung tags its phone with this price, people react saying “It’s Foolish”.
At best, people are laughing and waiting for the price to come down. At worst, there is negative publicity for the product. If you do not believe me check out the Flipkart reviews for the phone (link). Has any Samsung ever received a rating of below 3 stars? Now, its flagship has done what no other Samsung phone managed.
Read the reviews and you will see only one thing in them- Price! Yes, there are comparisons to other phones but this is just to make a point that Samsung is overselling the phone. Samsung tried to find the ceiling and they have banged into it hard. The problem is that even this price cut will feel less to people who are now negatively enthused towards the phone.
Check out some of the Review headlines, and mind you I have not even included some of the choicest ones as they are literally NSFW to put here!
With Sony taking new initiatives with its Xperia Z series and LG having the Nexus 5 in its kitty, Samsung has to come to terms with the fact that it is not Apple and when they can’t sell a phone at this price Samsung will only face criticism for this.
There is a couplet by Javed Akhtar (translated here)-
“The patient of dreams is now feeling well.
The world however was a bitter medicine..”
I guess something similar has happened with Samsung here. There will obviously be more price cuts but only time will tell how many and how soon.
[post contains aff links]
