HMD Global is steering its strategy in India away from traditional hardware competition—such as advanced displays and high-end processors—to focus on localized user experiences. In an interview with HT Tech, Ravi Kunwar, CEO and Vice President for India and APAC at HMD, highlighted the company’s recent integration of the Sarvam AI platform and the Department of Telecommunications’ Sanchar Saathi app into the HMD Vibe 2 5G as foundational elements of this approach.
The integration of Sarvam AI provides multilingual features across 22 regional Indian languages, offering speech-to-text, translation, and document digitization. According to Kunwar, future HMD and Nokia-branded devices will expand on these localized capabilities, with plans to introduce real-time language translation and AI-driven workflow personalization.
While competitors target premium segments, HMD continues to prioritize feature phones, 4G models, and budget 5G smartphones. Industry data from IDC’s Q1 report indicates that this focus has allowed HMD to capture the top position in India’s combined feature phone market, securing a 47.2% market share by value and 32.7% by volume across its combined Nokia and HMD portfolios. Kunwar indicated that expansion beyond the value segment into premium categories is planned to occur after 2026.
Ahead of the upcoming festive season, HMD intends to introduce several new models within the affordable 4G and 5G segments. However, macroeconomic challenges present ongoing pressure. Kunwar acknowledged that global chip shortages and geopolitical conditions make price increases across both feature phones and smartphones inevitable. He projected that market pricing volatility would persist for the next 12 to 18 months, though the company is adjusting internal operational efficiencies to minimize the direct cost impact on consumers.
