CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

Project of Marketing Management

On

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SAMSUNG & LENOVO AND TO FIND

OUT HOW THEY ARE DIFFERENTIATING THEIR PRODUCTS.

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Mr. Manoj Mishra Faisal Ahmad

Faculty of Management Roll No:- 1619

BBA. LLB (2nd Semester)

 DECLARATION

I, Faisal Ahmad, student of B.B.A., LL.B. (First year) in Chanakya National

Law University declare that the research project entitled A COMPARATIVE
STUDY OF DIFFERENT BRANDS OF CELL- PHONES AND TO FIND
OUT HOW THEY ARE DIFFERENTIATING THEIR PRODUCTS.
submitted by me for the fulfillment of Marketing Management course is my
own work. This project has not been submitted for any other Degree /
Certificate / Course in any Institution / University.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my faculty Mr. Manoj Mishra, whose assignment of such a
relevant topic and made me work towards knowing the subject with a greater
interest and enthusiasm and she guided me throughout the project.

I owe the present accomplishment of my project to my friends, who helped me

immensely with sources of research materials throughout the project and without
whom I couldnt have completed it in the present way.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to my parents and all those unseen hands
who helped me out at every stage of my project.

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 Table of Contents

Serial No. Particulars Page No.

1. Declaration----------------------------------------------------2
2. Acknowledgment---------------------------------------------3
3. Introduction----------------------------------------------------5
i. Aims and Objectives----------------------------------5
ii. Hypothesis----------------------------------------------5
4. Research Methodology--------------------------------------5
5. Product Differentiation--------------------------------------6
6. Comparative Study of Samsung & Lenovo--------------8
7. Conclusion----------------------------------------------------17
Bibliography--------------------------------------------------------------------------18

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 INTRODUCTION
This project deals with the comparative study of different brand of cell phones
and to find out that on which basis these brands are differentiating their products.
The brands are Lenovo and Samsung. Nowadays each and every brand of cell
phone manufacturer have rushed to the market with different varieties of cell
phones. Every brand has launched many varieties ranging from prices high to
low, or from custom hardware to varying design and looks.
The mobile market is going through a significant change the era of distribution
strength and hardware differentiation is long past; the market is now largely
dependent on software differentiation and consumer centric features that tie users
to a particular brand. For this developing economies, localization and
regionalization is the key. Therefore, in a country like India, with a population of
1.25 billion people (out of which only 150 million people speak English), it is
inevitable that the mobile market moves towards localized and customized
mobile devices.
This project will revolve around the concept of product differentiation. Product
differentiation basically means changing the marketing mix of a product so as to
differentiate it from whatever the competition is offering or to offer a product
which stands out in the market. This will include the explanation of the oncoming
of the cell phones in the historical market to the present day conditions where
each brand has different varieties of their cell phones.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES

The aim of doing this research work is to find out that how different brands of
cell phone manufacturers are differentiating their products in the market to cater
to the needs of a large number of customers.
HYPOTHESIS
The researcher presumes that brands which manufacture cell phones rely upon
differentiated products so as to target the various segments of the market and so
as to fulfil the needs of the most of the consumers as per their expectations.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher will emphasize on the doctrinal research for the completion of
this project topic. The researcher will rely upon the data of the different brands
of cell phone manufacturers to determine about their product differentiation.

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 Product Differentiation
Product differentiation is a marketing strategy whereby businesses attempt to
make their product unique to stand out from competitors. Businesses do this to
gain an edge in industries where multiple competitors produce similar products.
There are other methods businesses can employ to gain that edge, like pursuing
a low-cost strategy and advertising, but while those are legitimate marketing
strategies, they are different from product differentiation. Product differentiation
means that some feature, physical attribute, or substantive difference exists
between a product and all other alternatives. A product can be differentiated on
the basis of product form, features, quality, durability, reliability, reparability,
style and design.
Product Form
Products can be differentiated based on their form i.e. size, shape and other
physical attributes of the product. Product form is the sum total of physical
attributes of a product. For example, a medicine can be in the form of a tablet or
syrup or an injection. Marketers differentiate their products by changing the
form of products.

Design
A good design takes carer of the aspect of functionality or usefulness.
Customers usually look for functionality, apart from the design or shape of the
product. For example, Sony products are known for their excellent design. They
incorporate new features; they are easy to use; and require little or no
maintenance. Sony revolutionized the audio equipment market when it designed
the Walkman in 1979.
When companies differentiate their product on the basis of design, they need to
innovate continuously to bring out new designs because imitations soon spring
up in the market. Customers are also perceptive of the change in the value of the
product when the design is changed. Changes in design may take the form of
functionalities, looks, etc. designs are especially important for apparel, retail
items, packaged goods, etc.

Product Features
Product features are the characteristics that allow a product to perform
certain functions. A firm can differentiate its product from that of the

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competitor y adding or removing certain features. It is generally found that
adding new features enhances the value of the product and helps a company
gain competitive advantage. A company that offers more features often charges
a higher price, while consumers are willing to pay as they perceive the products
of being superior quality.
In market related to mobiles, different brands of mobiles vary their product
mostly on the basis of product features. They differentiate their models by
adding some new features in it which attract customers.
Marketers conduct marketing research to determine the design and features a
customer is looking for in a product. They try to analyse and identify the
features that are woth adding and the feasibility of adding these features to the
product. Marketers also calculate the customers perceived value and the cost to
the company of adding these new features. Customers should be an integral part
of the product development and modification process so that the features
customers want can be added and their satisfaction level can be increased.

Size of Package
Firms also differentiate their products on the basis of the size and the
weight of the pack. Samsung introduced many mobile phones which were
comparatively lighter than other conventional mobile phones. The lighter the
weight of the package, easier it is to carry and transport and it also catches
customers attention.

Product Quality
Quality of a product refers to the characteristics of the product that
enable it to perform according to the expectations of customers and meet
customers needs. According to the findings of The Strategic Planning
Institute, there is a positive correlation between products quality and a firms
return on investment. Firms that produce premium quality products such as
Sony Corp. or premium quality mobile phones by Samsung, often charge
premium prices for their offerings.
Companies spend huge amounts of money to maintain the quality of their
product so that product defects can be totally eliminated. They are also
encouraging their employees to identify problems or defects in the product and
rewarding them suitably.

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Durability
Products are expected to perform satisfactorily during their useful life. If a
product is durable, customers are ready to pay a premium. However, the extra
amount customers will pay for the durability of a product is not known with
certainty. If the technology used in a product becomes obsolete fast, the
advantage derived by the marketer from its durability also gets reduced. In such
a case customers do not pay a premium for the durability of the product.

Comparative study of Samsung & Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo is one of the most popular computer and peripheral manufacturing units
of the world, which has risen manifold in size in the recent years and has been
growing ever since. Lenovo was found by the name of Legend in the year 1984
in Beijing, China, and was incorporated by the name of Lenovo in 1988, and
from then has enjoyed major proportion of the market and has become one of
the most important players in the computer and peripheral market.
This giant, as of now holds a very strong position in the market and has
developed into a very reliable brand, so much so that now it has even taken over
PC manufacturing facility of IBM, apart from agreeing to take over Motorola
Mobility, the mobile phone manufacturing facility currently owned by Google,
which would further benefits its own range of mobile phones.

Lately, there has been a specific name that has gotten to be enormously
prevalent in machine based industry, and this name is of Chinese IT goliath,
Lenovo. The fame of this brand has raised in a compound manner every year,
and hence taken a larger piece of the pie because of its very solid methodology
and excellent machines and peripherals for customers. Given below is the

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presentation of the marketing mix of Lenovo that has strongly influenced its
name.

Products in the marketing mix of Lenovo

Computer and IT based market is highly volatile and has numerous challenges
that follow it, and to overcome it a participant has to offer variety and
technologically advanced products in order to stay abreast and sustain the
market. Lenovo is a brand that has widely differentiated and has not depended
upon a solitary class of items or administrations for its extension. The key for
Lenovo has been to furnish the business sector with a wide mixed bag of
technology driven products to satisfy their separate aspirations. This
development has been focused around a broad research and investigation of
approaching needs of its clients and distinguishing a need even before it exists,
which makes an unedifying dependability and dependence among clients and
customers. It has offered machines, and continually enhanced them at consistent
interims, and wandered into working frameworks, and giving changes on them
consistently keeping the pace alongside the business sector.
There are a large varieties of products in which Lenovo has its expertise namely
Laptops, tablets, smart phones, desktops, servers and accessories. The
accessories of Lenovo are one of the most selling and most in demand in the
market. The products of Lenovo are known to be dependable and reliable.

Price in the marketing mix of Lenovo

Lenovo is priced competitively when compared to other top brands. In fact, in
some areas like accessories it also uses penetrative pricing. The key factor for
Lenovo is to balance the price as well as the brand value. If priced too low, then
Lenovo risks the drop of brand image and positioning in the mind of customers.
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However, if priced too high, Lenovo will lose customers to competitors like
Dell and Hewlett packard. On the mobile front, Lenovo has too less models to
be actually competitive and hence it uses a cost plus pricing method where a
fixed markup is added to the product. In the end, laptops are one of the leading
products for Lenovo where it is strongly placed on the pricing front having
high value for the demanded price of the product.

Place in the marketing mix of Lenovo

Lenovo has exclusive showrooms as well as multi brand showrooms. It markets
itself through modern retail, E commerce chains, and majorly through the vast
numbers of IT and peripheral shops present across the country. Typically,
Lenovo operates through channel sales wherein distributors are associated with
the company. These distributors in turn give to individual retailers and channel
dealers. At the same time, Lenovo sells the products directly through modern
retail and through online channels. Because of channel marketing concept,
Lenovo has been able to spread far and wide for its products. Today, Lenovo
has 60000 employees and is present in 160 countries across the globe.

Promotions in the marketing mix of Lenovo

Due to its products, Lenovo has a certain measure of headway when it concerns
the promotions department. The technology segment and especially the IT
marget is filled with competitors like HP, Dell and Microsoft to make the
competition very high in the segment. However, by using the right marketing
communications and by targeting geeky customers who like a bit of zing in the
products that they use, Lenovo has hit the right promotions mix. It has always
showcased its products as the right fit for their customers which will get the
work done. The concept is that Lenovo makes machines which Do the work
for the customers. The company uses various ATL as well as BTL mediums to
get its product across to end customers.

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Market Position of Lenovo
Handset maker Lenovo will invest in experiential marketing and introduce
differentiated products in the country as it looks to further consolidate its
position in the Indian market.

Lenovo, which also sells Motorola phones, is also focussing on expanding its
business in offline retail to drive growth.

"We have grown from being No 31 in 2013 to being No 2 in 2016. We are

focussed on bringing in differentiated products and offering premium
experience to consumers," Lenovo MBG India Executive Director Sudhin
Mathur told reporters here.

He has recently taken over as the managing director of Motorola Mobility India
as well.

According to research firm IDC, Samsung led the smartphone market with 24.8
per cent share, followed by Lenovo (along with Motorola) (8.9 per cent) and
Micromax (8.8 per cent).

"We will also invest in setting up exclusive stores that will give hands on
experience for all phones, starting with pilots with large format retail stores...the
next growth will come from offline," he said without sharing financial details.

The company gets about two-thirds of its sales from online channel.

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Mathur said while the pace of people switching from feature phones to
smartphones has slowed down, the average selling price of smartphones has
gone up.

"It's going to be very challenging next three years. The top five brands will
constitute 80 per cent of the market and they will focus on the premium and mid
segments, not so much at the bottom of the pyramid," Mathur said.
The Indian smartphone market has seen a significant shift in the last few
quarters with homegrown brands being pushed out of the top five positions by
Chinese brands like Lenovo, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.
For Motorola, Mathur said 'mods' will be a key feature of differentiation.

Mororola's Moto Z, which was unveiled globally last year, allows users to
attach a set of accessories called 'mods' to the back of the device that adds
various functionalities to the device.
"We are working with various developers for future mods, some concepts of
which include printer capability, VR mod, charger mod for powering other

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mods and the phone etc...We will be bringing out three to four mods every
quarter, which will come at different and more affordable price points," he said.

Samsung

Samsung has a vast product portfolio and its presence is in several

different product categories. The brand image driver for Samsung are
the Samsung Smartphones such as the Samsung note series or
the Samsung galaxy series.
The benefit of Samsung in terms of its product is that there is a trust
on all Samsung products because of the way Samsung products have
performed in the last few years. Problems with the products has been
negligible.
And with its Smart phones, Samsung has achieved a status symbol for
its customers. At the same time, Samsung is known for its service and
people know that Samsung gives a very fast service for any of its
product. Thus in the marketing mix of Samsung, the product
portfolio is one of the strongest point for Samsung.

Price in the marketing mix of Samsung

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Because of its presence in different product categories, Samsung uses
various pricing strategies. We can divide the pricing strategies and
match it with the products that it is used for.
Skimming price Samsungs smart phones are one of the best in the
market and are the market leader in terms of the features and USPs
that they provide. The recent Samsung Note 3 + Gear is another
entrant in the market which is catching peoples eyes. Thus Samsung
uses Skimming price for these products wherein it tries to get a high
value in the start before competitors catch up. Once the model is old
or any competitor has launched a similar product, Samsung
immediately drops the price.
Competitive pricing For products other than smart phones, Samsung
uses competitive pricing. Televisions, air conditioners, refrigerators
and other products have competition in the form of Panasonic or LG.
Samsung is known to be a great brand but it is not greater than LG for
home appliances.

In fact LG beats Samsung where home appliances are concerned.

Similarly in Washing machines Whirlpool, and in Cameras
Cannon, are the brands which are to be beaten. You can view this
article on top Samsung competitors in each segment. Thus in various

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categories, Samsung keeps competitive pricing so as to beat the
competitor. Samsung as a brand hardly uses penetrative
pricing because it doesnt enter late in the market. In fact, it is present
in most consumer durable segments in the market.
Place in the marketing mix of Samsung
Samsung is present through various channels in the market. It works
on the channel marketing concept wherein there are three segments.
Sales and service dealers, Modern retail and Distributors. The sales
and service dealers handle key accounts for Samsung and are
involved in corporate sales. These dealers may also open exclusive
Samsung showrooms.
The Modern retail segment includes large retailers like Croma,
Hypercity, Vijay sales, Viveks and any others who are present in the
modern electronic retail chain. Samsung being such a branded
product, the retailers are bound to keep Samsung as an alternative or
as the primary product for their customers.

The distribution network is the most interesting in the case of

Samsung. In several cities, Samsung has a single distributor through
whom they distribute throughout a territory. For example In
Mumbai, Samsung has SSK distributors who are distributors for all
Samsung products.
This distributor has a huge investment in Samsung and both, the
distributor and the company, go hand in hand for the sale of
Samsungs products. Thus all material of Samsung will be sold to a
single distributor who in turn will sell it forward to retailers.

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Promotions in the marketing mix of Samsung
Samsung uses multiple forms of promotions. Samsung as a company
believes in pulling the customer to themselves through advertising but
at the same time uses strong tactics to push the product to the
customer through sales promotions.
Thus on one hand, Samsung uses various marketing vehicles across
the year covering festive season as well as non festive time. On the
other hand, it gives many offers and discounts to its trade partners to
motivate them to sell Samsung above competition. With such a
strategy, Samsungs brand is on the rise so that both, the pull as well
as push strategy is working simultaneously in Samsung.
The marketing mix of Samsung is a lesson to marketers in several
points. First, Business will grow if you have multiple products at once
as all of these products can become revenue drivers for your
company. Second, Pull strategy, though expensive, is far more
beneficial in the long time.

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 CONCLUSION
Product differentiation is a marketing strategy whereby businesses attempt to
make their product unique to stand out from competitors. Businesses do this to
gain an edge in industries where multiple competitors produce similar products.
There are other methods businesses can employ to gain that edge, like pursuing
a low-cost strategy and advertising, but while those are legitimate marketing
strategies, they are different from product differentiation. Product differentiation
means that some feature, physical attribute, or substantive difference exists
between a product and all other alternatives. Any product can be differentiated
upon the following categories :-
1. Product Form
2. Design
3. Features
4. Size of Package
5. Product Quality
6. Durability
From the analysis of the different brands viz. Samsung & Lenovo, the
researcher concludes that between these 2 brands there is a tough competition
on the sales of mobile phones. But instead of this, Samsung which is not a new
entrant in this field of business and has a trustworthy customer base failed to
make pace with the new entrant Lenovo, which with the introduction of a new
brand Moto beat the market of Samsung and occupied it.
Lenovo produces mobiles for all the market segments, including the average
consumers to the premium ones. It varies all its mobiles with different hardware
configuration and increases the product quality as it goes in the upper strata. It
has phones ranging from less than 10,000 to more than 20,000 in the market.
It has made a bigger customer base as compared to that of Samsung because of
its different levels of product differentiation in different market segments.
Whereas Samsung which has been an old manufacturer of mobile phones in the
Indian market as compared to Lenovo, but it failed in few past years due to the
entrance of Lenovo with better product, better quality and a variety of products
to choose from. But in year 2017 Samsung launched a new phone Samsung
Galaxy S8 which is totally up to date with the modern day technicalities and it
is assumed as a good substitute than its other phones.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Marketing Management, ICFAI University
Paul Baines, Chris Fill, Kelly Page, Essentials of Marketing, Oxford
Publication

Websites
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/companies/lenovo-to-
focusexperiential-mktg-differentiated-products-2149405.html
http://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-lenovo/
http://www.marketing91.com/differentiation-strategy/
http://www.adweek.com/digital/lenovo-overtakes-samsung-becomes-no-
1-smartphone-china-159519/
http://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-of-samsung/

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