Smartphone upgrades in India are almost always forced, thanks largely to cracked screens due to accidental drops. That’s the key takeaway from a joint research released by OneAssist and Hansa Research.
As much as 82% of Indian smartphone consumers have dropped their phone at least once, while 72% have suffered accidental damage, suggests the research study. “The research reflects an interesting consumer contradiction. Smartphones have become indispensable to how people communicate, transact, work and access entertainment, and accidental damage is clearly a common experience,” emphasized Subrat Pani, Co-founder, OneAssist, during the launch of the research study.
As much as the smartphone damage vs smartphone protection contradiction is real in India, the data suggests the diagnosis of this symptom perhaps may have been oversimplified until now.
The kneejerk reaction to why Indians don’t adopt smartphone protection plans would be because they’re not aware of it, right? That’s what I thought too. But numbers and data don’t agree with this assumption. While only 6-8% smartphone buyers choose an active protection plan, at least 36% confirm having used a smartphone protection plan in the past, according to the study.
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Beyond affordability and limited understanding of protection plans, better marketing isn’t going to help until something more fundamental is addressed, the study suggests. That people need a product experience that makes them renew without a second thought – and the confidence that their claims will be filed seamlessly and honoured.
The repair bill is only one part of the cost, as more Indians are depending on their smartphone to run their lives. The research suggests that as much as 35% respondents reported feeling panicked after dropping a phone, 24% fought with someone over it, and 15% cancelled plans immediately after damaging their phones.
The fixes are also interesting, according to the study. Where 29% have kept their water-damaged phone in dry rice for a fix, between 20–32% use adhesive tapes or local repair shops to keep the damaged phone chugging along. That shows that many Indians have normalised living with damaged devices rather than entering the formal repair ecosystem.
“As devices become more valuable and ownership periods lengthen, consumers are increasingly looking for confidence and peace of mind throughout their ownership journey. This makes it important for the industry to better address their concerns around affordability, simplicity and trust,” Pani underscores further.
This may very well be the most commercially relevant finding of this entire research study, the impact of refurbished smartphones on driving sales of protection plans. According to the research, 70% of respondents think protection plans are more important for refurbished phones than new ones, and 30% said they would be more keen on buying a refurbished phone if it came with a protection plan attached.
Ultimately, the conclusion to draw from this study is that device protection isn’t just an add-on while buying a new smartphone in India. It could be one of the key drivers of India’s circular smartphone economy.
As memory prices send smartphone prices skyrocketing in India, and as device replacement cycles go beyond 3-year cycles, phone protection adoption is expected to be a key consideration among Indian phone buyers going forward.
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