CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR MINI PROJECT

POCO F1
 Xiaomi POCO F1

Poco F1 is Xiaomi’s latest phone under its sub-brand Poco. It was launched in
August 2018. This is low priced high performance phone. It also has a good
camera and various other features that are there in various high end phones. One of
its principle features is its Liquid Cool technology. This is used to cool its
processor when performing high end tasks. The various features of POCO F1
include: SnapDragon 845 platform

LiquidCool Technology

20 MP front Camera

Octa-core Processor

AI Dual Camera

Most of these features are driven towards the high performance feature. Poco
means small in Spanish. The reason Xiaomi went for the Poco brand was that, it
wanted to bring in arrange of phones which concentrated on performance. They
considered Poco a small beginning of that great journey. Many of its competitors
had the same performance but were priced high . Hence this phone became a
success. The latest update of the phone came in February 2019. With this update its
security was enhanced. Also the phone was upgraded to the Pie version of
Android. Thus its acceptance was increased. The upgrade also increased its
performance and cleared various bugs that were there in the previous versions.

Criticisms
Although the phone was a success it had various drawbacks in the marketing side
as well as in the product side. Poco was released as a sub-brand of Xiaomi. Xiaomi
wanted a new set of phones that were different from their current phones. But , in
the end they designed it, it became a brand that was very similar to the ones they
had. Xiaomi already had good brand image . They could have used that to bring in
customers. But they created a new sub-brand, which was actually need less.
Another problem they faced was that the high performance they offered was only
associated with gaming. Although there were many features and applications for a
high performance phones, gaming was given importance. That was a drawback as
people buy phones for many reasons. If they see that only gaming is highlighted
they may not buy the phone at all. In order to reduce the cost of the phone they
strength of its body was compromised. This made the phone somewhat flimsy to
handle. These were some of the drawbacks which the phone had. But despite all
these it was able to perform well in the market. Their target market as well as many
people outside of it also accepted the product. Seeing the success of its first
product Poco has decided to launch F2 also in the market very soon.

Marketing Strategies
With the POCO, its new aspirational premium sub-brand, Xiaomi seeks to disrupt
the India market redefining the premium segment in India. The Poco F1 comes
with all the specs that a “premium smartphone” boasts about, at a price unheard
of. The question remains: Has POCO played safe with its pricing?

From a strategy perspective, creating a sub-brand named POCO was to take on

premium smartphone brands, especially the likes of OnePlus. In doing so, did
POCO get its pricing wrong? Surely, the POCO will attract its own set of users and
will do phenomenally well. While doing so, it will also eat into the market shares
of Vivo, Oppo and Asus who have smartphones in the same price bracket.
However, POCO did not have these brands as their target competition, and that in
itself, tells the story.

For a company like Xiaomi, getting the specs right and the price right are the easy
asks, but getting a user to shell more for its brand is a tough ask. For a smartphone
to be considered as “premium” in the eyes of a potential smartphone buyer, it
needs to have the brand recognition and equity to back its pricing up.

With the Poco F1, the POCO draws upon Xiaomi’s extensive supply chain
strengths in India to deliver the cheapest flagship smartphone ever, powered by
Snapdragon 845 processor, with a big 4,000mAh battery to boast of.

The Poco F1 comes with a 6.18-inch 1080p display, a 20-megapixel front camera,
and dual rear camera sporting 12-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras. The Poco
F1 offers all the premium specs in the sub-30K price band.

While POCO has almost won the specs war, the pastic, or “polycarbonate” back
takes the sheen off the “aspirational premium” smartphone tag.

In Conclusion
The users of Poco F1 will be Xiaomi Note users who are now replacing or
upgrading their device. The loyal Xiaomi fan will be keen on upgrading to a
premium device from the Xiaomi brand itself. However, this is not the
demographic that Xiaomi had in mind when it created POCO as a sub-brand.

If POCO from Xiaomi has aspirations of being seen and perceived as a “premium”
smartphone by the users, it has to have the courage to price it accordingly.
Unfortunately, POCO plays safe.

Customer Touch Points

Customer touch points are the points where a customer comes in contact with the
brand. There are several touch points for the Poco phone. Its advertisements are its
primary touch points which clearly say about the value offering of the phone. It
highlights all the relevant features of the phone which will attract its target
customers. Then comes the website. The Poco phone is shown in Xiaomi’s website
itself. Currently the phone is only available through online shopping sites. Hence
they are also a touch point for the brand. The company has taken steps to integrate
all the touch points so that the value proposition by the company is uniform in all
the touch points. The price uniformity is ensured by marketing it only through
online media. Another touch point of the product is the service centers. Since this
is a sub-brand of Xiaomi, The service centres of Xiaomi are used by Poco phone.
This will decrease the cost because additional service centres need not be created.

Customer Profiling
Customer age 14-40 years
Gender Men
Income 0-30000 per month
Generation Millennials
Nationality Indians
Social class Upper middle class
Lifestyle Technology oriented
Personality Enthusiastic
Innovation adaptation Early adopters

Improvements in Marketing Strategies

POCO Phone is the major sub brand of Xiaomi and Xiaomi is considered to be
budget range smartphone brand. Even though POCO is considered to be a premium
smartphone people will consider it as a budget range phone will not accept it as a
competition for brands like SAMSUNG, LG, Huawei etc.

If the product is launched as an independent brand rather than a sub brand it would
make an impression in customers mind.
Distribution of the product is mainly through online channels so it is not easily
available to customers, so if the brand introduce more offline stores and retail
outlets the product will be more available and it will improve the sales and the
product will reach the customers who are not into online shopping.

The product is made up of fibre and plastic so there will be questions about the
durability of the product. If the company gives more importance to the quality of
material then customers will have a positive impression about the quality of the
product.

Number of POCO service centres are very less compared to competitors increasing
the number of service centres will improve the customer service.

Advertisements of the products are mainly through online media so if the company
focus on more promotion through offline media and TV Channels the product will
reach more customers.
Customer Reviews
Reference
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/poco-f1-5591
https://www.flipkart.com/poco-f1-xiaomi-graphite-black-64-
gb/product-
reviews/itmf8fyjyssnt25c?pid=MOBF85V7A6PXETAX