Hasan Mehdi, a veteran of more than 12 years in business operations, as aggressive a marketer as they come, talks up the prospects of smartphones in the Bangladeshi market, and his personal achievements in an interview with Dhaka Tribune.
You have worked in Advertising, FMCG, telco and the device industry, a lot of dynamic shifts; how has it all contributed to your understanding of business development?
There have been critical contributions from this blend of industries.
Working in FMCGs gave me a solid base of disciplined brand marketing, product sales planning, and execution excellence. I had to forecast growth with longer-term, and more or less controlled visibility; I learned a lot from this.
However, telcos taught me service marketing, and added critical components such as cutthroat competition, speed of execution, risk-taking and continuous transformation. Stakeholder management has been something new to learn as well.
All of these helped me immensely at Samsung, where I needed to mix FMCG and Telecom in the right proportions, and bring out some disruptive innovations locally. So far, it’s going great!
You have been heading the Samsung’s Mobile division in Bangladesh for the last three years. Share bits about your journey.
It has been a roller coaster ride: 2010 to 2013 looking at it from a business development, marketing and sales growth, smartphone dominance and overall transformation of the local business point of view, it has been a truly rewarding journey.
Samsung is a great brand. I have got a great management and great distribution partners, I am blessed with a “can do, and never say die” team and I am in a market that itself is crazy enough to reward you with surprising feedback and growth.
Tell us about the competition and challenges in the mobile phone industry.
For such a fast-growing industry, competition is inevitable. And that is good for both players and consumers. Competition in the mobile device industry is more cutthroat than telco. Rapid shifts in technology and consumer preferences lead to very short lifecycle of products, and that is the crux of all competitive madness. This even leads to a very short lifespan of many brands and companies in this industry.
Competition becomes a big challenge when a level playing field is not there. Standardisation of quality (definition of “real” smartphone), control of copyrights (Bangladeshi-Chinese brands copying Samsung right, left and centre) and control of parallel imports and unauthorised products (non-warranty grey Samsung with high price gaps) these are the three difficult challenges we’re facing. We do hope that regulators and concerned authorities will soon take these matters seriously and jointly ensure the industry gets in shape and consumerism is upheld.
We have seen a paradigm shift for handsets and brands that are available in the market; what's the current status quo?
Change is the only certainty this line rightly fits the mobile device industry. Over the last three years, we have seen how market shares have transformed for many top players. 20-30 new brands entered the scenario, while half of them had to leave within the same period. The consumer affordability scenario has changed a lot, together with changes in preferences. The touch phone segment nearly got abolished. Smartphone buzz, created by Samsung, resulted in an equal amount of acceptance across segments and the market size has tripled in the last 12 months. These are all inspiring shifts for Samsung.
What type of government support could accelerate growth?
The Digital Bangladesh revolution should be complemented by a differential import duty in favour of smartphones. To support the growth of smartphones, I propose that the government allows very low or no duty on smartphone imports. Along with that, clear policies on quality standards and strict checks on smartphones must be enacted. With the advent of 3G, nothing can be better than these two steps from the government’s side.
What do you consider to be your best achievement so far?
There are two.
At Robi, two of my mobile money-related concept papers received international recognition and grant facility: One from GSMA the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the other from Remittances and Payments Challenge Fund (RPCF) a Bangladesh Bank and DFID initiative. At Samsung, our journey from almost nowhere in 2010 to today’s dominant position in smartphones is another big achievement of my career.
Does Samsung have specific product line plans to meet the demand of the Bangladeshi customers?
We always do. If you look into our portfolio, now we have great solutions for entry segments with our bar phones. They come with essential mobile telephony services with never-before-seen prices. In smartphones also we have come up with many affordable line-ups with the right quality and features. Now you can think of holding the world’s #1 smartphone; we have an extended line-up of smartphone options for consumers to choose from. In coming days, this will further increase in length and breadth.
How has the Samsung’s Smart-phone Cafe concept impacted its revenue?
Significantly. We now have around 50 Smartphone Cafes and have created an industry benchmark. Others are copying us in all aspects. These stores opened-up avenues for compelling touch and feel for consumers, face to face consultation by our resident experts, and thus are helping consumers go for the right choice. These 50 stores today contribute a significant share of our revenue as well as add to the brand value of Samsung.
In that light, we are also building mini-Cafe versions across the country, in big numbers, to extend the same facility to consumers.
With the unleashing of 3G, what would be the impact on smartphone users?
Great smartphones must get great data speed to fully realise their values. I expect the recent 3G launch will significantly impact the growth of smartphone sales in Bangladesh. Actually, one will complement the other here. Overall, I can’t imagine how immensely this dual growth is going to contribute to the life and work enhancements of all the Bangladeshi consumers.
How has the Equated Monthly Instalment (EMI) of high-end phones worked out so far?
This had been a successful and aggressive innovation from our side to address the financing need of the consumers. Today, in our mid-high segments, EMI contributes to more than 70% of sales.
How much of the total features does an average Bangladeshi use in their daily life? How to enhance the interaction?
No more than 20%. The smarter the phone is, the wider the features are. That’s a challenge, and we have started to run a “Smart Academy” to help consumers know their Samsung better than before by giving them training on their devices. We have started this already for Samsung Galaxy Note 3 users, and this will continue on a bigger scale.
With a growing middle class and increasing internet penetration, how do you envision smart-phones impacting not just people’s lives but also social development?
A device with good data speed is “the power on your side.” The world is closer than before, be it news, trends, opportunities or knowledge. This has an overall impact on the personal as well as collective/social development. If you look around, you don’t need many explanations. And with that, I am personally very excited about how Samsung will add to that development with our smartphones.
What's next for Samsung?
After branded retails and service establishments, we’re now concentrating on distribution expansion to reach more consumers and satisfy the industry growth of smartphones.
Any favourite quote you would like to share with our readers?
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo
What’s next for you?
I want to retire early, and set-up my own quick-bite food store. I dream of having my food chain across some of the tropical beaches of Asia-Pacific, where people will come, mingle, exchange ideas and have good time.
