Indian mobile handset brands strengthen presence

Though Nokia remained the leader with 52 per cent share, Indian mobile phone brands strengthened their presence in the domestic handset market through 2009-10 -- garnering a significant 14 per cent share.

"The Indian brands included Micromax (4.1% handset market share by revenue), Spice (3.9%), Karbonn (3%), Lava (1.1%), Lemon (1%) and Max (0.9%)," according to V&D100 Indian Telecom Survey conducted by CyberMedia Telecom journal Voice & Data.

The Voice&Data100 annual survey on handsets is based on the revenue of telecom equipment suppliers, including GSM and CDMA handset vendors.

"Compared to the previous year, these Indian brands gained a cumulative 10 percentage points of market share in the very competitive Indian market. Samsung gained seven points, as Nokia lost 12 percentage points share," it said.

The handsets are locally branded models, sourced from manufacturers in China and Taiwan.

The mobile handset market revenue grew 4.2% during the financial year 2009-10, against 7.9% in 2008-09 and 11.9% in 2007-08.

Though the low-revenue growth hid the fact that a large number of handsets were sold, it went to show that most sales pertained to low-priced handsets and the average sales price (ASP) had been dropping each year.

Around 108 million mobile phones were sold across the country in 2009-10, amounting to Rs 27,000 crore in sales -- up from Rs 25,910 crore in the previous year.

However, the number of mobile service subscribers seemed to be growing much faster than the number of handsets sold in 2009-10.

The country added 192 million mobile subscribers in this fiscal, the survey said, adding that a large number of the subscribers had more than one mobile connection and dual-SIM phones were increasingly coming into vogue.
    
Handset major Nokia remained the market leader with 52 per cent share, despite a 15 per cent revenue dip to Rs 14,100 crore from Rs 16,567 crore in 2008-09, the survey report said.
    
Samsung remained the second-largest handset vendor, with 17.4 per cent market share -- followed by LG at 5.9 per cent.
    
Sony Ericsson slipped badly last year, with very few options in the low and mid-range handset segments.