Battle is on: Apple, Samsung are going to splash you with deals to gain maximum this festive season

Apple and Samsung are gearing up for the upcoming festive season and sprucing up all the ammunition to attract maximum number of customers. Apple will be attracting customers with its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung also has plans to sell out its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge and make it a bumper season.

Apple has decided to spend Rs 100 crore for marketing, branding and advertising to bring down Samsung, which will spend Rs 125 crore during the festive season till Diwali.

As per the industry experts, Samsung will shower discounts, cashbacks, exchange offers and EMI schemes on the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge to keep customers away from buying the new iPhones.

"Samsung will offer cashbacks of up to Rs 5,000 on buying an S7 or S7 edge, besides hefty exchange prices for old smartphones. Monthly installments over 12 or 18 months with Bajaj Finance will be offered with no down payment and buyers will be given virtual reality headsets at Rs 1,990”, a person privy to Samsung's plans, requesting anonymity told ET.

Samsung India spokesperson told ET, "We are confident that the new innovative product portfolio and marketing programs will help us increase our growth rates during the festive season."

A huge interest has already been generated in the grey market by the new iPhones and a premium of about Rs 20,000 each maybe be charged by the dealers.

Both, Apple and Samsung are in a neck-to-neck competition in the premium segment.

According to data from Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research, Apple has already improved its share by around 10%, reaching to 37% share in the premium smartphones segment. Samsung, with 49% share in the segment, still stand at No. 1.

Apple has an increased focus towards the Indian market and last year announced an app and map development centres to be set up in the country. Stock of new iPhones would reach the retailers by September end as informed by the company.

While launching the new phones, Apple took the matter of price sensitivity of the Indian market into account this time. The new phones will be sold in the country by October 7, starting at Rs. 60,000 for 32 GB storage. That’s even lower than the benchmark set by iPhone 6s 16 GB, which in 2015, launched at Rs. 62,000.

"The fanboys would be booking it immediately," Vishal Tripathi, research director at Gartner India told ET. "A certain percentage of premium segment users who have the buying capacity and are not locked to a certain OS may migrate to the iPhone 7."

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