Discrepancy between reports of research firms such as Canalys and Counter Point is likely to confuse users on who's no.1 in smartphone market in India.
Which is the no.1 smartphone brand in India – a new debate has triggered after research firms Canalys and GFK pinned Samsung and Micromax respectively at the top spot. And now a new detailed report from research firm CounterPoint claims Samsung is still no.1 in India.
According to Counterpoint, Samsung led the overall mobile phone and smartphone market during the quarter with a market share of 16.1% and 27.4% respectively. Micromax maintained the second position in both overall and smartphone market closely following Samsung. Micromax smartphone shipments grew 75% Y-o-Y but declined sequentially
Intex entered the top 5 smartphone vendor rankings for the first time in a quarter capturing slightly under 7% of the market share during the quarter. Intex smartphones enjoyed a strong demand in sub-$100 smartphone segment especially for its Aqua 3G and Y Pro models.
Xiaomi smartphone shipments grew almost 250% Q-o-Q but the vendor failed to make it to the Top five smartphone vendors during the quarter. For the full year, the online only brands, Xiaomi and Motorola crossed 1Mn and 3Mn mark (cumulative shipments) respectively since launch signifying growing trend of consumers purchasing phones online.
The competition for the third – fifth spots in India smartphone market will be a close race between the fast growing smartphone brands such as Intex, Lava, Lenovo (Including Motorola), Karbonn, Xiaomi, Sony and others.
Interestingly, Canalys report said Micromax has finally overtaken Samsung to become the number one smartphone vendor in India. Samsung quickly responded citing GFK report stating it is still the no.1.
According to Asim Warsi, Vice President, Marketing, Mobile business, Samsung India Electronics Pvt. Ltd. – “In the entire year 2014, we continued to lead the market with innovative and exciting offerings. Our volume market share in the smartphone market in the year was 35.7%, which is more than double than that of the next player, while our value share was 40.2%, which is more than four times the next player. The GfK data is based on actual retail sales in 50,000-plus population cities.”
Rise of India, Indonesia and Bangladesh smartphone markets
According to CounterPoint's Market Monitor program for Q4 2014 (Oct-Dec), India, Indonesia and Bangladesh total mobile phone shipments stood at 89 Mn as smartphone demand skyrocketed and the total smartphone shipments contributed to more than a third of all mobile phones shipped during the quarter. These three markets combined offers an opportunity for mobile phone industry players looking to grow beyond the saturating China mobile phone market.
“Smartphone growth in these regions touches almost all the price segments with regional brands being prominent in the entry level smartphone segment. Apart from this we have seen Chinese vendors entering these geographies for the first time in CY 2014 and enjoyed a significant success rate. However it will be important to keep an eye on online only players on how they capture the smartphone growth in rural areas in these regions” says Tina Lu Sr. Consultant at Counterpoint research.
“While the vendors looking to expand their smartphone strategy beyond China, it is interesting to note that domestic brands occupy strong position in these three markets by capturing a share of 62%, 52% and 50% in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia respectively. In such a scenario a new vendor entering these geographies must play on the strength of regional brands which primarily is their distribution reach and price competitiveness” says Tarun Pathak Sr. Analyst at Counterpoint research.
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