Android 4.3 now has Hindi language support, expect Lumia sales to plunge in India.

[rakeshrai]

So the main reason I think the Lumia phones do well in India is because WP is the only smartphone OS I know that has Hindi language natively included (I think Symbian as well but anyway). This is a major feature and I think if someone who's primary language is Hindi would want it on their phone. So the Lumia 520 is a perfect device, low in cost and very efficient and well rounded for a budget phone and let's you type in Devanagri script in any app. Which is why I found it confusing why Android never had this language available. But now that 4.3 is going to feature Hindi, I expect tough competition for Lumia and the fact that Android has more features, I expect Android phones to sell even more than WP . Which makes me even more angry with Microsoft and it's lazy developers. :crying::unhappysweat:

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

That's a bit overdramatic. I seriously doubt given all the features that android has over windows phone that the fact it can now write in Hindi automatically means windows phone sales will fall.

Especially since there likely won't be many android phones running 4.3 that are in the same price range as the 520 coming out anytime soon.

 

[MilkyTee]

Android 4.3 will only be running on the newer, higher end, and thusly expensive Droid phones.
The market in India calls for cheaper hardware, and I think word has gotten out enough about the quality of the 520/620. You think a similarly priced Android would perform the same, even with 4.3? Hell no.

 

[Kellzea]

So the main reason I think the Lumia phones do well in India is because WP is the only smartphone OS I know that has Hindi language natively included (I think Symbian as well but anyway). This is a major feature and I think if someone who's primary language is Hindi would want it on their phone. So the Lumia 520 is a perfect device, low in cost and very efficient and well rounded for a budget phone and let's you type in Devanagri script in any app. Which is why I found it confusing why Android never had this language available. But now that 4.3 is going to feature Hindi, I expect tough competition for Lumia and the fact that Android has more features, I expect Android phones to sell even more than WP . Which makes me even more angry with Microsoft and it's lazy developers. :crying::unhappysweat:

So let me get this right, wp is awesome and suits what you need, but now android has Hindi language support, ms are lazy and wp sucks.

I don't even........

 

[rakeshrai]

No that's not what I meant. I mean to say Android is catching up on its missing features but WP is not. All thanks to MS. Believe I'm a MS/Nokia/WP diehard fan but I'm not mincing about MS's terrible pace.

 

[rakeshrai]

You guys do have a point about 4.3 not going to be on the lower end devices. Still there are many local Indian brands that are selling well and they compete with Nokia on pricing, so a high end e.g Micromax or Karbonn phone is still going to put 4.3 in their devices which competes with the higer end Nokia phones. In the long run MS might lose out if they don't start moving their asses.

 

[mpt15]

Micromax and Karbonn have been around a while and do offer less expensive handsets. But i have seen a LOT of Lumias in Mumbai, India over the past 3 months. The 520, 620 & 720 seem to be doing well. I dont think that Android can affect market share simply by offering Hindi language. WP is building a user base and. I agree with Micah Dawson above- price will be a major factor, and it will be interesting to see how many OEMs offer android 4.3 on low end devices.

 

[cckgz4]

As someone pointed out, 4.3 will NOT be coming to the already released low end phones. Hell, they might not even see that until next year. There's so many devices that still haven't seen 4.2

 

[Kellzea]

Android sucks at the low end, i mean sucks, its a lag fest of un-paralleled stature. The low end phones miss masses of apps and abilities. They are slow and sluggish with next to no support from official channels.

WP has issues, that's undeniable, but performance at any level is not one of them. You don't get instagram with wp. But that's pretty much it. Google are trying there best to make life hard in wp, but you know what? Its easy to ditch google. The outlook, office, skydrive trio is brilliant. And available for the lowest price wps.

Just because google release a new version of android doesn't mean a cheap phone will get it. It in all likelihood wont. How many samsungs run jellybean?

How many nokias will get wp 8.1?

Yeah.

 

[bilzkh]

WP supports rich text, I'm sure Hindi support will make its way...but honestly, do that many people in India speak Hindi? I thought regional languages were much more common, e.g. Telegu?

 

[rakeshrai]

WP supports rich text, I'm sure Hindi support will make its way...but honestly, do that many people in India speak Hindi? I thought regional languages were much more common, e.g. Telegu?

Most people speak Hindi although it's fast being displaced by English. But still people from the cow belt converse primarily in Hindi. The biggest film industry Bollywood is made in the Hinfi language. Telegu is mainly spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh and down South.

 

[Ian Too]

Hi Rakeshrai and thanks for your post.

I tend to agree with those like Kellsea. 4.3 or not, Android is a miserable experience on low-end devices. I have a colleague who recently got a Samsung Galaxy Ace and was getting a low memory warning after installing her second app; and one of these, Viber, was loaded onto a microSD.

Android has many problems but one which is unlikely to go away is with OEMs; who in order to differentiate, fill up their customers' devices with useless software.

This, is on top of the fact that Android takes in the region of 4 times as much memory as Windows Phone, really means that an SD card HAS to be factored into the cost of the device. Whereas a Lumia 520 doesn't really need one for the average user, because Windows Phone leaves 6Gb free for apps. You have to be a fairly heavy user to need all that given that your photos can be uploaded to Skydrive.

I recently did the comparison between my Lumia 920 and a Galaxy S4, and the result was 7.9Gb of memeory used on the GS4 to 1.9Gb on the Lumia. Jellybean should be called Fatman.

Yes, on Android you can side-load apps on to an SD card, but not all of them. Whatsapp won't load onto an SD, which is where my colleague ran into her problem. And exactly what percentage of the 600,000 apps will run on low-end hardware like a Galaxy Ace? By comparison, we know that 99% of Windows Phone apps will run on a Lumia 520 or similar device.

There is a simple message here which we need to get out: Hindi or no, Android does not meet the needs of the low-end user. Windows Phone does.