Vivo Eyes 10 Flagship Stores By 2024
Chinese smartphone maker Vivo on Thursday said it plans to open 10 flagship stores in the country by 2024 to expand its offline presence and connect with customers.
Vivo's announcement comes after it opened its largest store in Ahmedabad at 7,000 square feet, spread over three floors. With these new stores, the smartphone brand now has four supermarkets in cities like Bengaluru and Coimbatore. The new flagship stores will showcase Vivo's product range across categories for customers to try. Also, service centers will be present in stores as well as gaming areas so that customers can enjoy games in different ways on devices.
The company will also host monthly seminars on topics such as smartphone photography.
“With customer focus as our primary focus, we aim to create a comprehensive and individualized interactive experience for our customers at our exclusive stores. Therefore, our modern experiential stores are designed to allow consumers to interact with products like never before. Have an integrated and seamless experience in a meaningful way and under one roof,” said Jitaj Chanana, Head of Corporate Strategy, Vivo India.
"We plan to add more pilot stores in other Tier 1 cities as part of our long-term commitment to provide our customers with a comprehensive shopping experience," added Chanana. The company currently has a network of 650 exclusive stores.
Recently, brands such as Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, etc. have focused on expanding their offline presence, which is important for companies facing a differentiation trend. Analysts argue that before buying a premium smartphone, customers want to experience and feel the product, which is why offline is so important. According to industry estimates, about 45% of smartphone sales in India are online, giving the physical sector an opportunity to benefit.
Vivo has the second largest market share in the country with 17% at the end of June, according to Counterpoint and Canalys. Samsung has been number one for three consecutive quarters with 18% market share. According to IDC, Vivo has overtaken Samsung to take the top spot with 16% market share.
“Vivo maintained the second position in the overall market and was the only brand among the top five brands to show growth compared to last year. Strong offline presence and overall growth of the iQOO sub-brand," said Shubham Singh, research analyst at Counterpoint Internet. Also contributing to this growth were multiple launches across price segments. Canalys said the smartphone brand shipped 6.4 million telephone units. April-June quarter, last year 7% more than
