Smartphone brands recast festive ad spends after 20% slump

India’s smartphone marketers head into the festive season with a harder brief than last year: do more with less volume. Counterpoint Research puts Q3 2026 shipments down 20% year-on-year, the lowest level in a decade. Higher component costs are raising device prices, and the pressure is heaviest in the sub-₹20,000 segment, where shipments fell 47%.

01 · Why festive budgets are in focus

Smartphone brands spend an estimated ₹3,000 crore a year on advertising, and 40–50% of that lands around the festive window. That puts roughly ₹1,200–1,500 crore of marketing investment under the spotlight as consumers delay upgrades and inspect every purchase more carefully. Counterpoint expects the overall smartphone market to contract around 13% in 2026; festive unit volumes are projected to fall 12% even as market value rises 5% on higher average selling prices.

The individual budgets are similarly top-heavy. Samsung spends around ₹300 crore a year on advertising and promotions, with nearly 40% concentrated around the festive season. Apple’s India spend is estimated at over ₹850 crore, OnePlus is close to ₹500 crore, and Oppo is around ₹100 crore, according to industry estimates.

• Q3 2026 shipments: down 20% year-on-year, a decade low
• Sub-₹20,000 shipments: down 47%
• Festive unit volumes: projected down 12%, while value rises 5%
• Annual ad spend in focus: ₹3,000 crore, with ₹1,200–1,500 crore festive-heavy

02 · Premium versus mass-market playbooks

Motorola India’s head of marketing, Ipshita Chowdhury, is not stepping back from brand building. “Market conditions may be cyclical, however, brand building is a resilient and long term process,” she told exchange4media. Her festive campaign, ‘It’s the time to moto’, is built to balance upper and lower funnel as consumers trade up.

Anil Solanki, media lead at dentsuX, expects premium brands to keep investing in brand equity while mass-market players focus on value propositions, exchange offers and financing schemes. Shradha Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Grapes, expects more selective allocation than in 2025, with money moving to models, price segments and markets with the strongest conversion potential.

03 · From share of voice to share of wallet

The real test is no longer reach. “The bigger shift will be from share of voice to share of wallet,” Agarwal says. Brands will not necessarily reduce visibility, but they will demand greater accountability from every advertising rupee. Siddharth Devnani of SoCheers expects a stronger bottom-of-the-funnel push: reviewers, specification comparisons, digital campaigns, influencers and performance marketing to convert consumers, with exchange bonuses, bank discounts and no-cost EMIs helping close the sale.

There is no clean switch from traditional to digital. Smartphones are high-consideration purchases, so television and print can still build trust and awareness, while technology reviewers build credibility and commerce media captures demand. Agarwal frames the winning move as “making brand building improve performance” rather than choosing one over the other.

For CMOs, the festive question has quietly changed. It is less about how much to spend and more about which combination of channels produces the most incremental sales at the most efficient cost.

Source: Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.