Nokia Joins India’s Smart TV Race With Focus On Make In India With Flipkart Partnership

Flipkart has entered a strategic partnership with Nokia to launch the Finnish company’s smart TVs in India. The ecommerce giant will not only distribute the brand’s smart TVs, but is also handling the manufacturing in India.

For Nokia, the Flipkart collaboration is not just about a manufacturing partner, but a complete go-to-market strategy with promotions and research-backed product development.

Flipkart said it conducted market research to determine features for the Nokia TV range, which include JBL-powered audio systems.

Nokia is the latest smartphone brand to venture into the smart TV category, which saw roaring sales in the just-concluded festive season sales on Flipkart and Amazon. Ecommerce platforms reportedly achieved a new record in online sales of smartphones and televisions. 40-45% of smart televisions sold were sold through ecommerce platforms, which indicates that the average ecommerce shopper is comfortable purchasing TVs online.

Besides Nokia, OnePlus, Huawei’s Honor and Motorola recently launched smart televisions in India. Motorola has also partnered with Flipkart for the launch and manufacturing of smart television sets.

India has been one of the fastest growing markets for smartphones. But smart TVs are emerging as a new hot-selling category on ecommerce, thanks to the proliferation of data at affordable prices, catalysed by the disruption brought about by the launch of Reliance JioFiber broadband services.

The launch of JioFiber has led to broadband tariffs plummeting across the country. JioFiber is said to have a similar impact to Reliance Jio when it revolutionised mobile data in the Indian market. And this is expected to spur on the consumption of OTT and digital content on TV screens, which is resulting in the boom for smart TVs.

As the market is maturing slowly, new players are entering the smart television market to join the traditional electronics giants. Even if OnePlus, Motorola and Nokia do not have a lasting impact on the Indian television market, the success of Xiaomi’s Mi TV has surely intensified the competition in the smart televisions segment.

Interestingly, all the new smart TV brands have focussed on the Make In India factor, and not just for manufacturing but also for the software experience.

OnePlus announced its commitment to invest INR 1000 Cr over the next three years in its India operations with a focus on R&D. The company launched its research and development facility in Hyderabad last year, which works on the development of India-specific software features for the company’s OxygenOS Android UI, which also powers its smart TV range.