We caught up with Madhav Sheth right around the launch of the Honor 90 in India. Our candid conversation touched upon how Honor is approaching the Indian market and how Madhav Sheth plans to differentiate, build trust, and compete in the fiercely competitive Indian smartphone market. Honor is in for the long run and the formula is very much rooted in keeping the basics in place, with a delightful customer experience being at the core of everything that Madhav plans to do with the re-entry of Honor in the Indian market.
Coming from realme to HTech, how do you find the change?
Madhav: The change is great, for me it’s all about doing something disruptive. There is a lot of monotony in the market and a stronger R&D and need for a fresh start is the need of the hour. I want to create a new benchmark in the way you do business in India. We will focus on cutting-edge technology and compliance in mind. We want to be the new disruptor in the market. Indian market is the largest consumer market when it comes to consumption. India is one of the most stable economies in the market. We want to connect with consumers in India, offering a truly differentiated product.
What can we expect from Honor in its new avatar?
Madhav: You can expect the latest tech and high-quality products at all price segments. Along with a robust after-sales service, from day one we will have a strong network of 400+ service centers. We will have a 30-day replacement policy. While most brands have a 7-day replacement policy, we give a 30-day replacement policy. For any hardware defects or manufacturing issues, customers will get a free replacement. We will replace it with a new unit, not repair but replace it. All these are measures towards customer delight and building trust in Honor as a brand.
Why did Honor choose the Honor 90, a premium mid-ranger as the debut launch device? Honor has a massive line-up of phones in the international market. What is the strategic intention to go with the Honor 90?
Madhav: Yes, it is a strategic move. Honor 90 is the most balanced product in the Indian market in the 30-40K space. In India, the growth story is in the premium segment. Above 30K, consumers do not have too many options. Consumers have only Samsung as a viable option in the above 30K segment. There is OnePlus as well but because of the Nord series, they are not able to sustain in that price segment. With Honor 90 we are giving more choices in the 30-40K segment. The idea is to establish the brand as a high-quality premium offering. And then roll out more products at lower price points to cater to the larger mass market.
Honor has always been traditionally an online brand from a sales channel perspective, what is the strategy this time?
Madhav: We will be going with online and offline channels. The physical touchpoints are crucial for premium products. It is very important for customers to experience premium products before they buy them. We are trying to create more than 3,000 touchpoints across India for customers to physically experience the products. These stores will be multi-brand outlets for sales as well as experience touch points.
Talking about consumer experience, how is Honor creating products for the Indian consumer?
Madhav: Globally consumers are the same, at the end of the day, consumers look for the overall user experience. However, the definition of experience is different for different types of users. For the youth, they look for a different experience in comparison to the business users. For a gamer, experience stands for smooth frame rates on popular games like BGMI and how he can get maximum frame rate when gaming. So, globally the fundamental experience expectations are very similar for consumers. But in India, brands tend to define and connect experience with specifications. We are focussing on end-user experience and use cases as opposed to pure specifications. For example, the Honor 90 has a 4K video capture with wide-angle front and back cameras put together. This feature is especially offered for content creators and influencers. We chose the 4nm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 as the best chip that can deliver that experience in the most effective manner while keeping the battery life in overall efficiency in mind. Such innovations and solutions come from strong R&D which goes well beyond just the specifications of the device.
On the software experience and support side, what can consumers expect? With brands now offering up to 4 Android OS updates and support. Honor is committing to two years or two major OS updates. Why is that?
Madhav: The global standard is about three years for security patch updates and two OS updates. I believe that the replacement cycle is between 24 to 36 months. And that’s where we are covering the entire life cycle. However, what’s more important for us is the UI experience. Unlike phones that come with bloatware and ad-optimized interfaces, Honor phones will offer the cleanest and unintrusive UI. Honor phones will not have any pre-loaded screen saver apps or ad-optimized apps.
Will the line-up of upcoming products be the same as what Honor has in China? Or, can we expect something different for the Indian market?
Madhav: We will surely have customization over a period of time for the Indian market. That’s how I want to approach the market. The premium Honor segment will come from international markets to India. But we will also have offerings for the affordable segment where I plan to have customization for the Indian market.
Besides phones, what else will Honor be offering in the Indian market?
Madhav: Yes, the ecosystem has to be complete. We will be bringing other products from our ecosystem to India. The idea is to acquire customers across segments and build an ecosystem. It makes sense from a business-building perspective as well as serving customer needs across various use cases and need states.
If we were to ask you to define the persona of Honor consumers, can you paint that picture for us?
Madhav: They are the new-age independent consumers who make their own decisions. They are the influencers in their family. Honor consumers seek top-quality product experiences and they influence the purchase decisions of their friends and family.
Also read: Honor 90 review
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Soham Raninga
Soham Raninga is the Chief Editor for Digit.in. A proponent of performance > features. Soham's tryst with tech started way back in Dec 1997, when he almost destroyed his computer, trying to make the Quake II demo run at >30FPS View Full Profile
