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The mobile phone market has been legendary in brand case studies. I’ve been a part of this journey with my association with Siemens Mobile. Let’s hear about two great brands and their subsequent success in Pakistan from Shahrukh Rohilla.
1- I was working with Samsung Electronics from 2010–2011 and
was responsible for Channel Sales. Samsung was not a market leader in Pakistan where Nokia was dominant. While Samsung was slowly rising in the global smartphone space, they launched Galaxy S globally and received a great response. It was difficult for us to scale up order volumes (Sell-In) for Samsung in Pakistan. We used to launch 12–14 products a year and hardly 2–3 models would perform in addition parallel, smuggled goods would erode the price lines as well.
In 2012, we planned a mega launch for Galaxy S3 with all bells and whistles addressing major channels. Our distributors weren’t confident though even after letting them through the programs we were planning. Due to global demand, the product had been hard to get, and the reluctance of the distributors had been frustrating.
The launch went through as planned.
The rare site of retailers and wholesalers queueing up at the distributor warehouses…
