Samsung Is The Leader In Indian Mobile Market – Counterpoint Research Report

Despite various reports emerging in the last few days about the dominant position of mobile phone vendors in huge and fast expanding Indian market, one thing is clear that South Korean giant Samsung retains the no. 1 position in India followed by Indian vendor Micromax. This finding of Q4 2014 has been reported by  Counterpoint Research, which state that Samsung led the overall mobile phone and smartphone market during the quarter with a market share of 16.1% and 27.4% respectively.

According to the report of Counterpoint, 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. 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.

The report further state that Lenovo raced to number fifth position primarily due to acquisition of Motorola capturing almost 5% of the Indian smartphone market during the quarter. 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

The other findings of the report are:

• India mobile phone market grew by 6% Y-o-Y but declined sequentially on account of a mixed seasonality during the quarter.
• Smartphone shipments stood close to 22 Million during Q4 2014 reaching to a record level crossing 80 Million units for the first time and contributing close to 32% of the overall shipments in CY 2014.
• India is the third largest smartphone market in the world and shipping almost twice as many smartphones shipped in Japan in 2014.
• 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.
• Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone shipment touched half a million units for the first time in a quarter with strong demand for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

There is good news for Samsung in other countries also as per report of Counterpoint. Samsung leads the overall and Smartphone market of Indonesia also during the quarter with a market share of 19% and 26.4% market share respectively.