POCO India marketing head Ken Sekhar on smartphone branding and retail visibility

In an executive profile, Ken Sekhar discusses POCO India’s fast-moving marketing playbook, spanning product positioning, campaigns, creator-led ideas, memes and retail visibility.

— Source published Mon, 17 Aug, 2026, 00:55 IST · First seen Mon, 17 Aug, 2026, 00:56 IST · Source Financial Express · BrandWagon

What happened

POCO India marketing head Ken Sekhar discusses the fast-paced role of smartphone marketing, including product positioning, campaigns, creator ideas, memes and

Key facts

  • POCO F8 Ultra
  • PlayStation 5
  • Royal Enfield Interceptor 650

Why this matters

POCO’s integrated approach increases the strategic value of partnerships with retail chains, creators, and local marketing platforms that can strengthen distribution-led differentiation.

What to watch

  • Expansion of POCO-branded experience zones, promoter hiring or new retail merchandising partnerships.
  • Higher frequency of offline launch events, college activations or city-specific creator meetups.
  • Changes in retailer incentives, dealer-margin commentary or bundled accessory promotions.
  • Evidence that POCO prioritizes 5G mid-range devices with strong demo-friendly features such as gaming, cameras or charging.
  • Sell-out momentum in offline-heavy tier-2 and tier-3 markets relative to ecommerce performance.
  • Competitive retail pushes from Xiaomi, realme, Motorola, vivo and Samsung in POCO’s core price bands.
  • Increase branded display zones, live demo counters and retail staff education in high-throughput multi-brand mobile stores.
  • Tie creator campaigns to store-level calls to action, QR-led offer discovery and launch-day offline events.
  • Deploy city- and language-specific retail creative rather than one national merchandising template.
  • Offer channel partners differentiated launch bundles, financing visibility and faster replenishment for priority SKUs.
  • Measure online-to-offline conversion through retailer codes, localized search lift and sell-out data rather than awareness metrics alone.