Pepsi Co. has announced plans to launch a smartphone in China as part of a bold new marketing strategy the company hopes will attract more customers to its long list of products.
The food giant will license its brand for use on a new smartphone available only in China "in the next few months" to market Pepsi gear like apparel, soda and food to that nation’s growing middle class, a spokesman for the company tells U.S. News. Pepsi made $67 billion in revenue last year through global sales of its brands including Aquafina, Doritos and Mountain Dew.
"Technology is a key cultural pillar at the heart of consumer interaction," the spokesman says. "Pepsi has no plans to get into the mobile phone manufacturing business, but we are committed to engaging with consumers in innovative ways to grow our brand."
The phone is an opportunity for the world’s third largest owner of food and beverage brands to promote its other products in China by showing its logo on frequently used mobile phones – and perhaps also by selling soda coupons through calling card minutes, says Ramon Llamas, a research manager at the International Data Corporation.
Google’s Android operating system will power the new device, called the Pepsi P1, which will feature a camera and 16 gigabytes of storage for a price of $205, tech blog Mobipicker reports. China-based Shenzhen Technology Co. will likely manufacture the device that will bear Pepsi’s logo, the website says. The tech blog also cites Chinese media reports that the new phone will be unveiled in Beijing on Oct. 20.
Apple has done well selling iPhones in China’s booming smartphone market, where more than 500 million people access the Internet through a mobile device. With Pepsi’s global brand name standing behind a new device, it may be able to reach even more customers in China than Apple with a price lower than the competition, Llamas says.
Apple’s iPhone 5c, which was aimed at low-income customers in emerging markets, costs more than $500 without a contract, while “in China and other emerging markets we are looking at smartphones that cost under $100 without a contract,” Llamas says.
This marketing strategy is bold in a growing mobile device market, but selling a phone with the primary goal of promoting another product doesn’t always pay off, Llamas says. Amazon recently stopped selling its Fire Phone, which it debuted last July with the goal of attracting mobile traffic to its Amazon Prime video and e-commerce service. The device cost roughly as much as an iPhone but was not as advanced, so it had lackluster sales.
The food giant will license its brand for use on a new smartphone available only in China "in the next few months" to market Pepsi gear like apparel, soda and food to that nation’s growing middle class, a spokesman for the company tells U.S. News. Pepsi made $67 billion in revenue last year through global sales of its brands including Aquafina, Doritos and Mountain Dew.
"Technology is a key cultural pillar at the heart of consumer interaction," the spokesman says. "Pepsi has no plans to get into the mobile phone manufacturing business, but we are committed to engaging with consumers in innovative ways to grow our brand."
The phone is an opportunity for the world’s third largest owner of food and beverage brands to promote its other products in China by showing its logo on frequently used mobile phones – and perhaps also by selling soda coupons through calling card minutes, says Ramon Llamas, a research manager at the International Data Corporation.
Google’s Android operating system will power the new device, called the Pepsi P1, which will feature a camera and 16 gigabytes of storage for a price of $205, tech blog Mobipicker reports. China-based Shenzhen Technology Co. will likely manufacture the device that will bear Pepsi’s logo, the website says. The tech blog also cites Chinese media reports that the new phone will be unveiled in Beijing on Oct. 20.
Apple has done well selling iPhones in China’s booming smartphone market, where more than 500 million people access the Internet through a mobile device. With Pepsi’s global brand name standing behind a new device, it may be able to reach even more customers in China than Apple with a price lower than the competition, Llamas says.
Apple’s iPhone 5c, which was aimed at low-income customers in emerging markets, costs more than $500 without a contract, while “in China and other emerging markets we are looking at smartphones that cost under $100 without a contract,” Llamas says.
This marketing strategy is bold in a growing mobile device market, but selling a phone with the primary goal of promoting another product doesn’t always pay off, Llamas says. Amazon recently stopped selling its Fire Phone, which it debuted last July with the goal of attracting mobile traffic to its Amazon Prime video and e-commerce service. The device cost roughly as much as an iPhone but was not as advanced, so it had lackluster sales.
No comments:
Post a Comment