Micromax overtakes Samsung to emerge as India’s largest mobile phone supplier

Micromax has overtaken Samsung to emerge as India's largest mobile phone supplier in Q2 2014, according to independent market research and consulting firm, CounterPoint Research, The Times of India reported.

According to the report, Micromax's handset shipments share was 16.6 per cent in the quarter while that of Samsung was 14.4 per cent. Samsung has lost its pole position for the first time.

Nokia with 10.9-per cent shipments share stood at the third position, followed by domestic brands Karbonn and Lava which had a 9.5 per cent and 5.6 per cent share, respectively.

The Korean company, however, still retains the top slot with a 25.3-per cent shipments share in the second quarter, in terms of smartphone shipments.

Micromax is closing the gap with a 19.1-per cent share, followed by Karbonn, Motorola and Nokia.

The smartphone shipments share figures are in line with a recent report by Canalys, which too placed Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn as the leading smartphone makers, shipping 8.5 million, 5.8 million and 2.3 million handsets, respectively.
 
The Canalys report said Motorola shipped 955,650 smartphones in the three-month period, while the corresponding figures for Nokia were 633,720.

Interestingly, Micromax emerged as the leading feature phone supplier with a 15.2-per cent shipments share, according to the CounterPoint Research report.

Nokia with its 14.7-per cent market share was displaced for the first time.

Meanwhile, in another development Motorola's gamble of taking the exclusive e-commerce route for its India re-entry with the Moto G, six months ago, paid off handsomely in smartphone segment.

Motorola, which sells its products only through e-tailer Flipkart, upstaged rival Nokia in sales to emerge as India's fourth-largest smartphone player, displacing Nokia to the fifth position.

It may be pointed out that Motorola was not even among the top five in sales pecking order in the January-March period, Business Standard reported.

Counterpoint said Motorola had a 4.3-per cent market share in the April-June quarter, as against Nokia's, which was down to 4 per cent. Samsung continued to lead the pack in the smartphone market with a 25.3 per cent share, while home-grown players Micromax (19.1 per cent) and Karbonn (5.9 per cent) were second and third, respectively.

A survey by research firm Canalys, too pointed to similar trends with Motorola shipping over 1.3 million smartphones in the past two quarters (January-March and April-June), while Nokia, which continued to be the market leader in India's total handset sale (feature phones and low-cost handsets included), shipped around 1.2 million units of smartphones.