Thursday 11 October 2012


Do patrons of Micromax get ‘Nothing like anything’?

Micromax has grown leaps and bounds in all these years and is among the major successes that telephony market in India has ever seen. Its initial innovations were no less than remarkable and had everyone take notice of it. Despite being an Indian brand, assembled and made in Chinese and Taiwanese markets, Micromax rung up to the top league and sat comfortably next to biggies such as Noika, and Samsung, in considerably less time.

Micromax’s rampant success caused heavy losses to other foreign brothers including LG and Sony Ericsson. Micromax did live up to Nothing like anything.

However, as it has happened with other Indian brands in the past, Micromax could not keep up the momentum and capitalize on the hype it initially created. As the story unfolded, its quality which was always a question mark became a reason of its fall from the growing quality conscious, fashionista customer base. Micromax may still have held tight control over the price sensitive, fad catching customers. In my mind, Micromax could easily be called Ravi Kisan of Indian mobile market.

Now that Micromax has reached where it belongs I have for a long time had this question lingering in my mind – what would its patrons make of Nothing like anything? Please bear in mind the customer profile which in my view can be sketched as –

  • A willing man belonging to a working class has come to the city from a small town in hope of making big. He is in a stable job or a business, slowly and steadily getting his foot in. He has only opened books to see pictures and rarely read. A half of his teeth are dark red, if not fully spoiled.
  • A college-going teen caught in the fad, competing with better offs in his/her surrounding and trying best to catch up with in-things.

The consumer base that Micromax is now serving is quite Desi. Nothing like anything is a US-born phrases to which a parallel can be drawn with I ain’t no anything. They both sound more complicated than they actually are. The literal meaning of Nothing like anything is Incomparable. But, those who must get it for Micromax would actually get it? I have my doubts.

I can say it with lot of confidence that a consumer survey done on what Micromax users make of Nothing like anything will throw some startling results. Anyone interested to pitch in?