Here's Why companies rebrand same phone under two names!

In the smartphone industry, you may have come across a very common confusion every now and then – the same phone being sold under a different name in different regions. Yeah, what’s that about? It most certainly isn’t just a country-specific marketing tactic from the brands; there’s so much more to the story. Some companies go even as far as to form a separate brand to appeal to a wider range of customers. So, in this video, we’re going to briefly discuss why smartphone manufacturers launch the same phone with different names, in different countries.

When buying a new smartphone through official means, you have two options: through online and offline stores. From setup & operation, selling phones via physical outlets bear much more cost than going online. For example, the distribution of profit margin throughout the supply chain, rent for the physical space, etc. On the contrary, e-commerce skips most of those costs and is, therefore, a much-preferred medium to most brands with the ongoing rise in online buying. After all, more profits! And isn’t that what every company’s end game is, no matter how customer-first their mission statement sounds.

Let's take an example of Xiaomi. It was an online-exclusive brand in India but with time, they’ve managed to build seven manufacturing plants in the country. In the long run, Xiaomi couldn’t afford to neglect the massive offline stores in the country and eventually started selling through retail outlets too.

Circling back to the price complication among the two mediums, you can see how selling the same phone between them can invite obstacles. Naturally, customers get to browse products from the comfort of their homes while also benefitting from a discounted price. If not for the sheer volume of offline stores, this practice effectively makes them obsolete.

And that brings us to our first conclusion; how can a company continue its dual-market strategy if buyers dominantly benefit from only one of them?
Then come the protests from retailers on their failing business. While e-commerce may be booming and all, the industry is nowhere near ready to dismiss the significance of its counterpart. To continue on this policy, companies have to figure out a way to keep both these practices healthy. And one way to do that is to sell the same phone under different names to throw-off buyers from the obvious price discrimination.

Once again bringing Xiaomi into the discussion, the company has multiple sub-brands under its name. Here, Mi and Redmi focus on offline stores while the new POCO is an online-exclusive entity. So, you may have witnessed the rebranding of smartphones between the sister organizations.

For instance, Redmi K30 became POCO X2 for the Indian market and more recently, the Redmi K30 Pro turned into POCO F2 Pro for the global market. While us techies are well-aware of the name-change game, it wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption when I say most of the regular customers aren’t aware of the fact.

Even after having spun-off into an independent brand from their parent company, why not manufacture its own unique lineup of phones? The answer to that question is quite simple. You see, manufacturing smartphones is not an instant process. A phone’s development cycle including R&D, design, development, marketing, etc. takes somewhere between 12 and 18 months.

That is what’s going to happen in the long haul but companies like POCO that recently acquired their license of autonomy can’t afford to wait that long to take action. So, they take the easy and the only way (for now) to build momentum in the market. A little rework to an existing phone from the parent organization is exactly the kind of strategy it needs to apply to ramp up the market in its early days. As the saying goes “the first impression is the last impression”. Therefore, if POCO managed to make a strong first impression with competitive pricing & receive positive reviews among the smartphone enthusiasts, the company will eventually be on its way to manufacture its own phones – different from the ones from Xiaomi’s other sub-brands like Mi & Redmi.

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