Festive sales: Premium gadgets dominate shopping bags after GST cuts; easy credit drives expensive purchases
This Diwali, consumers have shown growing enthusiasm for premium electronics, spending on costlier smartphones, large-screen TVs, and high-end home appliances. From Navratri through the festival of lights, sales of smartphones priced above Rs 30,000 reached an all-time high, while 43-inch televisions surpassed the long-favourite 32-inch models for the first time, according to industry analysts and company executives.Electronics manufacturers reported record growth, with premium categories such as refrigerators and washing machines seeing sales surge by 45–50% during the festive season. Some high-end items, including side-by-side refrigerators, 75-inch televisions, and large-capacity front-load washing machines, sold out before Diwali, reflecting the strong consumer demand.“While premiumisation has been gaining strength every year, this Diwali it reached newer heights,” Satish NS, president of Haier India, the nation’s third-largest consumer electronics company, told ET.According to executives, this spike in spending came on the back of several factors: reductions in GST across multiple categories, pent-up demand following the announcement and implementation of tax cuts, improved consumer confidence, income-tax rate cuts, easier access to consumer finance, and aggressive festive offers by manufacturers. Counterpoint Research reported that premium smartphones priced above Rs 30,000 accounted for a record 28% of total volume sales this festive season, up from 23% last year.Ashok Vaswani, CEO of a leading private sector bank, said the institution is gradually seeing growth in unsecured lending, including personal loans, credit cards, and microfinance portfolios.“Personal loans have already picked up and we will see micro finance and credit card loans also growing to become double digits and then mid-teens in our loan portfolio,” Vaswani said. “We had gone slow on these loans but credit costs on these loans are declining, except for some stress we see on retail commercial vehicles,” ET cited the executive.
