Step aside Samsung: Micromax becomes India's top mobile phone seller

The Indian market has been flooded with a variety of feature phones and smartphones over the past year and homegrown brands like Micromax, Lava and Karbonn have taken on stalwarts like Nokia and Samsung. And according to a new study, the Indian brands may be giving the international ones a run for their money.

A recent study by Counterpoint Technology Market Research on the mobile market in the country for the second quarter of 2014 threw up some interesting results, including the fact that Micromax became India’s top mobile phone supplier for Q2 2014. The news comes asSamsung Electronics reported its worst quarterly profit in two years and flagged uncertain earnings prospects for its key handset business, fuelling worries about its ability to return to growth.

Here are a few quick points about India’s mobile phone market:

- The Indian mobile phone market grew a modest 2 percent annually but the smartphone segment grew 68 percent annually during Q2 of 2014.

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- Indian brands together captured more than two-thirds of the total mobile phone shipments and more than half of the smartphone shipments

- Globally, Micromax jumped up the rankings becoming the tenth largest handset brand in terms of mobile phone shipment volumes.

Mobile Phones:

Micromax became the leading mobile phone supplier brand in India in Q2 2014 for the first time ever surpassing Samsung capturing nearly 17 percent market share up from 13 percent in Q1 2014. In second place was Samsung (14.4 percent), followed by Nokia (10.9 percent). (see table below)

Smartphones:

Micromax was also the second largest smartphone vendor closing in on Samsung, capturing 19 percent share in this fast growing segment. Samsung leads the pack with just over 25 percent. Karbonn (5.9 percent), Motorola (4.3 percent) and Nokia (4 percent) fall way behind in this segment, registering only single digit percentages.

Micromax has widened the gap with the third largest smartphone player as the race for the third place is up for grabs with fierce competition between Karbonn, Motorola, Celkon, Nokia, Apple and Sony. (see table below)

Feature phones:
Micromax (15.2 percent) also became the leading feature phone supplier overtaking Nokia(14.7 percent) for the first time. (see table below)

The research firm predicted intensified competition in the Indian smartphone sector from the likes of Xiaomi, Gionee, Huawei and Asus, that will enter with premium-like hardware at aggressive price-points attracting young tech-savvy but price-conscious urban buyers.