Samsung expands lead over Micromax in India’s smartphone market

NEW DELHI: Samsung Electronics expanded its lead over Micromax in India’s smartphone market in September, while Nokia retained its third spot, significantly ahead of Lava and Karbonn, data from research firm Gfk showed.

Gfk data for July, August and September showed South Korea’s Samsung had achieved a 33% market share at the end of the period after gaining over a percentage point from August. Home-bred Micromax came in second with more than 18% share, adding a tad over the previous month, while Finnish handset maker Nokia, now owned by Microsoft, managed to keep itself going at No 3 with 12% share. ET has reviewed the research firm’s data.

In the wider market that includes feature phones, Samsung led with about a fourth of the market share while Nokia continued to be No 2 at about 21%. Micromax, however, came in a distant third with 13.5% share, data showed.

The smartphone market in India is surging, as a drop in prices tempts more people to switch from feature phones to smartphones.

The trend revealed in these Gfk figures – which are based on actual sales –contrasts those brought out in the April-June data published by CounterPoint Research, Cybermedia Research (CMR) and International Data Corporation (IDC), which suggested narrowing of gap between the market leader and its closest challenger.

Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research had said that Micromax was the leading overall handset vendor with 16.6% market share in the April-June period, overtaking Samsung, which garnered 14.4%. The other two had noted that while the Korean company was still the leader, the Indian vendor was fast catching up.

Counterpoint’s director of research, Neil Shah, stuck by the agency’s second-quarter findings, adding that its preliminary data for the July-September period also showed the same trend – Samsung trailing Micromax in the overall market, but the reverse in the smartphone segment.

“We track shipments, i.e. what is sold into the channel from the OEM and that is pan-India and not sell-through in our quarterly Market Monitor program,” Shah said, explaining the difference in methodology compared with Gfk.

GfK did not comment on the figures sourced by ET. IDC chose not to comment on these numbers as the research firm is expected to come out with its third-quarter data next week.

About 71% of more than 924 million mobile phone users in India still use feature phones, offering a massive opportunity for global as well as Indian players to increase their footprint in this pricier segment.

Most handset makers, including new entrants, are focusing on the Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 category, in which a far larger number of smartphones are sold compared with the premium price brackets. As per IDC, more than 36 million smartphones were shipped into India till June this year.

According to Shah, preliminary Q3 2014 data from Counterpoint shows that Samsung still leads the India smartphone market with 26% share, having improved from the 25.3% it had in the previous quarter. Micromax comes in a close second with 21% share by shipments.

A spokesperson for Samsung India did not comment on market share figures specifically, but reiterated that Samsung is a clear leader in the mobile handsets business across price categories. “We will continue to offer the best to our consumers in line with their expectations to maintain our leadership position.”

Micromax did not respond to ET’s email query on the market share figures.

Faisal Kawoosa, CMR’s lead analyst, said preliminary findings matched its previous quarter findings of Samsung as the market leader with Micromax closing in, in the case of smartphones. It did not comment on the overall market data, saying it will release full numbers soon.

“One needs to compare the methodology, reach, et al of any research programme to compare it with another,” Kawoosa said.

As per Gfk on a value basis, Samsung leads the overall and smartphone markets with about 34% and 38% market share, respectively, at the end of September.

Nokia, despite losing market share, is No 2 by value overall, and in third spot for smartphones, while Micromax is No 3 overall and No 2 in the smartphone category.

Japan’s Sony managed to grab around 6% and 8.5% share, respectively, higher than local handset makers Lava and Karbonn, which as per IDC, are among the top four brands as of June-end.

Microsoft declined to comment on market shares while Sony did not respond to ET’s queries on the matter.