Samsung leads Indian smartphone market

Aug 20, 2015, 08:20 am

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Samsung took the lead with 20% share + Indian smartphone market grew by 43%
Retail stores that sell Samsung phones such as Galaxy series can be found easily at airports, shopping malls, and more. The picture above is a retail store in a shopping center in New Delhi, India/ Photographed by Ha Man-joo


By Ha Man-joo, India correspondent, AsiaToday - Samsung continues to lead the Indian smartphone market. In addition, experts say smartphone sales in India would overtake feature phones by September 2015.


Indian media outlets including Business Standard and Economic Times reported on Wednesday that Samsung Electronics continued to lead the Indian market with a 20.6% share in overall mobile handsets shipment during the April-June 2015 period, citing a CyberMedia Research (CMR) finding. Samsung's market share grew by 2.1% from the January-March quarter. For smartphones, the company's share was 24.6%, down 3.4% from the previous quarter.


However, Samsung has claimed that its market share in India has crossed 40% by value in June this year. It also claimed that local and Chinese phone makers are raising their market shares with low-cost phones.


"Players like Intex have believed in reaching out to first time smartphone users, and this 'go-to market' strategy has paid off very well for them," pointed out Karn Chauhan, analyst, CMR's India Telecoms Practice.


Intex grabbed 10.4% share of smartphone market, up 1.2% from the previous quarter. It took the No 3. spot with 9.5% share in the overall mobile handset market. Micromax was at No 2 with 14.8% share in smartphone category and 12.3% share in the overall market.


Experts say that Samsung will continue to lead the Indian mobile phone market.


"While Samsung's share continues to be ahead of its nearest competitor, there could be some advances at second and third spot," said Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.


In addition, India shipped a total of 24.4 million smartphones during this quarter, up 25% from the previous quarter. It accounts to 43% of the overall market, which grew 7% quarter-on-quarter. During January-March 2015, the share of smartphones was 36.8%. Given the current trend, smartphone sales would overtake feature phones in the next quarter.


#Samsung #smartphone market #India 
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