Samsung gobbles up Nokia's mkt share in India

Korean mobile handset maker Samsung is catching up fast with its Finnish competitor Nokia on the back of a strong growth in smartphones and feature phones in India.

According to the latest figures made available by the Voice & Data study, Samsung posted a growth of 21.7% to register revenues of Rs 5,720 crore in FY11 from India, from Rs 4,700 crore in the previous fiscal.

Nokia on the other hand had a flat growth, with revenues of Rs 12,929 crore in FY11 from India compared to Rs 12,900 in the previous fiscal, according to the Voice & Data study.

Though Nokia remains the market leader in India with a 39% share, its dominance is under pressure, say experts.

According to industry sources, Nokia's market share has is 37.5% in January-July this year. Its market share stood at 49.3% in 2010.

Its competitor Samsung's market share has increased to 28% in first seven months. In 2010, Samasung's had a market share of 20.1%, sources said.

In terms of monthly shipment also, Samsung has grown its base at a much faster pace than others.

"In FY08, Samsung sale was 0.2 million units approximately in a month, while Nokia sold 4 million lakh units. At present, Samsung is selling is selling close to 3 million units per month but Nokia has marginally increased to 4.6 million," said an industry expert who did not wished to be named.

Smartphones like the Galaxy and Wave series have helped Samsung increase its share in the smartphone category.

Samsung has already said it expects smartphones to contribute 15% to the sales volume by the end of 2011 from about 10% earlier this year.

Nokia, however, is geared up for the challenge.

"In the smartphones segment, Nokia continues to lead in this market, and according to Canalys, the smartphone market in India stood at 6.32 million units in FY11 and Nokia's share in this[segment] was 62.6%," Nokia spokesperson said.

Nokia has recently tied up with Microsoft for adopting Windows phone as primary platform for smart phones.

"While Windows will be our primary smartphone platform, we will continue to leverage the value of Symbian to compete and address consumer demands as we build our Windows Phone business," the spokesperson added.

Nokia is also betting big on the dual-SIM category.

"In the [Indian] mobile phones segment, we had some challenges in our portfolio because of lack of dual sim devices. As per various industry estimates, dual sim is 50-60% of market size and we had no play in it till the launch of X1-01 and C2-00 in June 2011," the spokesperson said.

According to experts, home grown companies like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Spice and other mobile handset firms importing from China have eaten into market share of multi-national firms on the back of low-cost dual-SIM feature phones.

"We continue to strengthen our portfolio and by year-end we will introduce new form factors like Qwerty and touch-and-type and phones at cheaper price points," Nokia spokesperson said.