India soars on mobile handset mart

Long known as one of the software capitals of the world (as well as the top handset-selling market), India is rapidly making its way in the mobile hardware market as well. A recent research paper shows that local vendors have consolidated their position in the domestic mobile handset market, with a collective market share of 33.2 per cent.

A third of the market share is thus now being commanded by domestic companies, according to data from technology researcher IDC India.

Nokia, the traditional market leader in India, took a severe beating, accounting for approximately 36 per cent of the total market for the quarter ended June 2010. The company held 56 per cent of the total market the same period a year ago.

The data also showed that there are now about 35 significant Indian handset vendors as opposed to just five in 2008. In fact, domestic vendors Micromax Informatics Ltd and Spice held the number four and five spots in terms of market share for the quarter.

The data released by IDC also showed that handsets with multi-SIM feature constituted nearly 39 per cent of sales in the June quarter - a significant jump from about 1 per cent in the corresponding quarter the previous year.

Growth in multi-SIM phones could be attributed to several new service providers responding to highly competitive tariff plans to a price sensitive mobile telephony user market, said Naveen Mishra, lead telecom analyst at IDC India.