Micromax beats Samsung to be India's leading mobile phone vendor: Report

It would seem Micromax has done it. It has beaten Samsung in India. Well at least according to a study by Counterpoint Research. The company has outsold Samsung in the Indian mobile market (not the smartphone market where it is still second to the company), says the report from the research firm. Read more about that here.   According to the report, “the smartphone segment grew at 68 percent annually in Q2 2014 in India and Indian brands captured more than two-thirds of the total mobile phone shipments and more than half of the smartphone shipments.”   The report also names Micromax as the leading mobile phone supplier brand in India in Q2 2014 for the first time ever surpassing Samsung capturing 17 percent market share up from 13 percent in Q1 2014. The report says that in the smartphone business Samsung is leading with a 25.3 percent market share, while Micromax has a 19 percent market share.   Micromax also became the leading feature phone supplier overtaking Nokia for the first time, adds the report. Interestingly in this report, Motorola was number four in the smartphone market with a share of 4.3 percent. Motorola has claimed to sell 1 million **Moto devices** in India.   It should be noted that these market share figures need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Remember the research doesn’t given any specific number on how many shipments were seen in total. According to IDC’s Q1 results for India,  the overall India mobile phone market stood at close to 61.07 million units being shipped. (This includes both smartphone shipments which are increasing and feature phone shipments which are declining). Smartphone shipments stood at a total of 17.59 million.   The IDC numbers had painted a very different picture in Q1 as far as the mobile market is concerned. **According to IDC, Samsung had a 20 percent overall share of the overall mobile market** , and a 35 percent smartphone market share. Micromax was number three within the overall mobile market with a 12 percent share, while it had a 15 percent market share in smartphones (number two). Thus according to Counterpoint, the picture has changed drastically and we don’t yet have the specifics of how.   Given that Micromax’s two biggest launches this season were **Unite 2** and **Canvas Windows smartphones** , it remains to be seen which ones did the best for Micromax once numbers from other research firms also come in.   As far as Samsung is concerned, globally Q2 hasn’t been a very kind quarter. Samsung's profits have slumped as users have gone for cheaper devices. And now with India getting smartphones from Chinese players like **Xiaomi** , **Gionee** , etc, there’s no doubt that the smartphone market in India is going to change drastically.