Panasonic is expected to launch a new lineup of budget mobiles in India under its ‘Sanyo’ brand. The company is already selling a bunch of smartphone devices in India and Sanyo will be a supplementary brand for the company for India. Panasonic had purchased Sanyo Electric back in 2010. The Sanyo-branded smartphone are likely to come in 2017.
According to a report on Nikkie, the Sanyo-branded smartphones are expected to launch a range of $96 to $192 (roughly Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000).
These smartphones are expected to be launched under the online-only platform, like Huawei’s strategy for its Honor sub-brand. The manufacturing of Sanyo-branded smartphones will be sourced from an external company. The move seems parallel to the recent Google smartphone launch with its own branding but which have been outsourced by an external company.
Panasonic mobiles has its own manufacturing plant wherein the assembling of phones is done at ‘semi-knocked down’ level and is planning to fully manufacture their phones within next two years in India.
It’s a worth mentioning that the Sanyo Electric is a well-known brand for its sale of large household electrical appliances. Hence the recall value of the brand is still there in India. Panasonic’s effort on launching smartphones under the Sanyo brand hints that the company is aiming to expand its business with the brand which has potential for getting consumers in the country.
Panasonic is planning to target the rising budget mobiles market; particularly the 4G with VoLTE enabled devices, in India. According to Counterpoint Research report, the demand for the smartphones having 4G VoLTE support has nearly doubled in Q3, 2016. The rapid increase in 4G VoLTE mobiles demand is due to the recent launch of Reliance Jio services. In Q3, over 14 million VoLTE enabled smartphones were shipped in India which has accelerated after the launch of affordable network services.
Panasonic has recently launched its P71 smartphone in India. The latest mobile is a 4G VoLTE capable smartphone which comes in two RAM variants- 1GB of RAM priced at Rs 7,490 and 2GB of RAM priced at Rs 8,190.
The Panasonic P71 flaunts a 5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) display. The device is powered by a 1.25GHz quad-core processor with 16GB internal storage and up to 32GB external storage. The smartphone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS and boasts a 2000mAh battery.
The Panasonic P71 smartphone offers an 8MP primary rear camera with LED flash and autofocus. On the front, there is a 2MP camera for video chats and selfies. For connectivity, the latest mobile offers dual-SIM, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, GPS, FM Radio, and Bluetooth. The sensor on board includes proximity, accelerometer, and ambient light. The P71 smartphone measures dimensions at 143x71x8015mm and weighs 138 grams.
Last month, Panasonic has launched its Eluga Tapp smartphone in India for a price of Rs 8,990. The smartphone features a 5-inch Full HD (1080p) display, fingerprint scanner, 4G VoLTE, and integration of Android for Work feature which allow users to keep the data of personal apps and work apps separate from one another.
