 "Micromax, Karbonn beat Apple, Samsung sales in India")
The demand for affordable smartphones in the major emerging markets like India and China has been on a rise. The rise in demand has helped local mobile manufacturers surpass shipments by the established global brands like Samsung and Apple in the April-June quarter this year, research firm IDC says.
According to IDC data in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan region, homegrown vendors shipped 46 million units, while Samsung and Apple together shipped 35 million units in the second quarter of this year. Other global brands like HTC, BlackBerry, Nokia, Sony, LG and Motorola shipped a combined 10 million units, whereas the internal vendors from China like Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo shipped a total of 27 million units in April-June 2013. IDC identified Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Maxx and Intex as the rising players in the emerging smartphone market in India and brands like Coolpad, K-Touch, Xiaomi, Gionee and OPPO in China.
The research firm said local brands in the world’s two most populous country, part of Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) region (APEJ), have aggressively scaled up their operations and are competitive on both price and hardware specifications. “Aside from the top-tier international brands or Chinese brands that also ship globally like Huawei and ZTE, there is also a rising segment of homegrown brands, which as a group have been steadily rising in shipments and prominence,” IDC said in its latest report on mobile shipments.
Local player Micromax has surpassed global brands like Samsung in terms of sales
These homegrown players comprised 38 percent of second quarter 2013 volumes, up from 20 percent in the same quarter of 2012 and seven per cent 2011 second quarter, it added. Asia/Pacific region saw mobile shipments of 119 million units in April-June 2013, up 10 percent quarter-on-quarter and a huge jump of 75 percent from Q2 2012, IDC said. In the report, the firm said, “In emerging markets like China and India, IDC has seen many local competitors spring up, but only in the last few quarters have we seen them aggressively scale up, competitive on both price and hardware specs like bigger screens”.
“We are now hitting a place where there are smartphones for every price point, where the masses will benefit from the slew of players bringing in more options,” the firm said. This is the first quarter that IDC saw both the under USD 50 segment of smartphones gain some traction in China. While, the 4-inch plus screen size segment drove most shipments, the 5-6 inch segment saw its first gain in both China and India, it added.
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