Mobiles phones with low specs make a comeback in premium market
Entry-level smartphones with 2GB or 3GB RAM are making a comeback. Brands like Itel and Lava are targeting this segment with new models. Major brands have shifted focus to premium phones, leaving a market gap. Shipments in this segment have signif...
New Delhi: Smartphones with 2GB or 3GB RAM, along with 4G support, are making a comeback through brands such as Itel and Lava though the larger industry has moved away from entry-level specifications citing poor user experience.
This, industry executives said, is a means to capture the entry-level segment that is increasingly being vacated by the major brands as they move up to premium pastures, chasing higher profits. Most of these models are priced under ₹10,000, a price segment that has become difficult for brands to cater to due to rising memory and chipset costs.
<p>Some brands roll out mobiles with low memory as bigger cos abandon segment due to rising chipset costs<br></p>"Shipments in this segment fell 74.3% YoY in Q2 2026, with its share of the market shrinking from 15.6% to just 4.5%, reinforcing that the entry-level tier is fast becoming commercially unviable under the current cost environment," research firm IDC said.
Flipkart and Amazon are also selling entry-level phones from little known brands like Siavantage, Oneme and Zeno that sport iPhone-like designs, but pack entry-level hardware.
"The last 2GB RAM phone was launched back in 2023 that too to keep the price under ₹6,000. Now, you can see 2GB and 3GB RAM phones selling for ₹8,000-9,000. These are coming back because a lot of brands are not getting enough supplies and have to rely on smaller RAM chips to continue operating," an industry executive from a smartphone brand said on condition of anonymity.
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The executive added that more models with such entry-level hardware are expected to flood the market ahead of the festive season, to cater to the latent demand that is still there for budget phones. Itel announced a handset earlier this year with 2GB RAM and 64GB storage, while Lava has an entry-level 4G handset with 3GB RAM and 64GB storage.
Industry experts said most smartphone brands have effectively abandoned launching models with such low-end hardware with the Android operating system becoming more demanding. That said, Google too announced support for a version of Gemini that can work with 2GB RAM earlier this year, indicating that such hardware specifications are making a comeback.
"Most brands have crossed the ₹30,000 price segment this year even with hardware they were selling for much less last year. But the market for such high-end models is only around 30 million, whereas demand for sub ₹10,000 phones is still strong, well over 40-50 million, especially in smaller towns," another industry veteran said.
