Korean electronics major Samsung continues to retain the top position in the Indian mobile phone market with a share of 17 per cent closely followed by homegrown player Micromax with 14 per cent share according to the latest report from International Data Corporation.
Samsung is also the number one brand in the smartphone category with 29 per cent market share compared to Micromax's 18 per cent. IDC's report is contrary to a survey released by Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research, which gave Micromax the top slot in the overall market.
Jaideep Mehta, Vice President and General Manager - South Asia, IDC, says, “While Samsung has held on to its leadership position in the market, it is noteworthy that Micromax is growing faster.Given the current growth rates, there is a real possibility of seeing vendor positions change in the remaining quarters this year.”
According to IDC, high volume support for Samsung came in from the sub $150 products such as Galaxy Star pro and Galaxy S Duos. "In order to maintain their leadership in the market, Samsung needs to work on the margins at the entry level models. With the entry of Chinese vendors and repeated challenges being poised by the Indian vendors, the entry level segment of smartphone market has become a gamechanger and plays an important role in defining the leadership position," IDC said in a statement.
Micromax toppled Nokia to clinch the second spot in the overall market. In the smartphone segment Karbonn, Lava and Motorola figure among the top 5 brands.
Smartphone shipments have touched year-on-year growth of 84 per cent in Q2 2014 and a quarterly growth of 11 per cent. The potential for growth in the smartphone market is quite high as 71 per cent of the market continues to be on feature phones.
The overall India mobile phone market stood at 63.21 million units in Q2 2014, that is, a 5 per cent quarter on quarter growth against Q1 2014.
According to IDC Asia Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker (excluding Japan), vendors shipped a total of 18.42 million smartphones in Q2 2014 compared to 10.02 million in the same period of 2013. The sub $200 category of the smartphone market is increasing in terms of the shipment share as the contribution from this category stood at 81 per cent in Q2 2014. With the influx of Chinese vendors and Mozilla’s plans to enter the smartphone category at $50 level, the low end segment of the smartphone market will become crucial in the coming quarters.