Micromax customers quite cash-less; sales down 30%

NEW DELHI: Consumer sales of domestic mobile handset vendor Micromax have fallen by up to 30% in the past 3-4 weeks due to demonetisation sucking up cash from the system coupled with seasonal slowdown after Diwali, a top official has said.

Shubhajit Sen, chief marketing officer at Micromax, on Wednesday also claimed that the impact on the company was lower than that on the overall industry.

Speaking at the sidelines of the launch of Micromax’s latest 4G smartphones launch, Sen said industry-wide sales through ecommerce channels have been hit the most because the hard cash liquidity crunch has impacted the ‘cash on delivery’ mode, which most Indian online shoppers preferred.

November sales of smartphone through ecommerce channels have dropped by 18% month-on-month, as per preliminary estimates by Counterpoint Research.

The market research firm also said that the share of smartphone sales online has also dropped to 34% in November, after rising to 37% in October on the back of festive season offers.

Micromax’s distributors have also seen a 15-18% decline in sales in the last few weeks, Sen said, adding that the handset vendor is offering higher credits to distributors to help cope up with the situation.

He said the situation is gradually improving and expects things to get better in the beginning of the new calendar year.