Samsung loses handset crown in India, but tops in smartphones

[ARMOUR]

Samsung has fallen from the pedestal and become the No. 2 handset maker in India.

Samsung recently released a disappointing earnings report, and just lost its position as the top smartphone vendor in China during the last quarter. You know what they say, bad news comes in threes — sure enough, a new report has shown that the Korean company has been toppled as India’s top mobile phone vendor.

Counterpoint Research’s latest findings claim that Micromax, the five-year old Indian company, shipped more devices than Samsung in India for the first time between May and July. Micromax’s share of the overall mobile market rose to 16.6 percent, from 14 percent the previous quarter, putting it ahead of Samsung’s 14 percent share.

There is a caveat, however. Micromax is top of the pile based on shipments of feature phones and smartphones combined. Samsung retained its lead on smartphone shipments alone. It’s dominant 25 percent share is more than six percent higher than Micromax’s tally.

This is the first time that Micromax has bested Samsung -- and become the top mobile phone brand in India.

The success for Micromax came among feature phones, which account for about 70 percent of total device shipments in India. Samsung could see a silver lining, however, owning the smartphone market with 25.3 percent share, beating out Micromax's 19.1 percent.

Sources:

• CNET
• CXOtoday

[calguyhunk]

I think this report misses the wood for the trees a little bit. Samsung may still be the no.1 smartphone vendor, but they've lost a huge amount of market share. Not only that, they've also actually shipped less than the previous quarter. ;) Report on BGR India

Most of that is due to the extremely aggressively priced recent launches from Motorola, Asus and Xiaomi, and the promise of more to come over the next few weeks from the same three vendors and indeed others. :yes:

Samsung had begun to stagnate and take their mid-range and entry-level market share for granted. Low-end hardware for mid-range prices and mid-range specs for stratospheric untenable pricing can only work as long as there's no competition - and truth be told, there wasn't much in the past. :(

But recently, in the face of increased competition from Motorola, Asus and Xiaomi, Samsung along with LG, Sony and HTC are probably waking up to the fact (or at least I hope they are) that they'll have to up their game in order to stay relevant. And that can only mean good times ahead for the consumers. :thumbsup: