Samsung leapfrogs past Motorola as India's No.3 mobile player

As Nokia maintains its lead in the Indian mobile phone market followed by Sony Ericsson, the South Korean company, Samsung took the third slot with considerable increases in its market share.

The latest ORG data reveals that Samsung is the only prominent player to have increased its market share in the January-March period. It has gained market share from 5.7 percent in January to 7 percent in March. Motorola India's market shares have fallen from 6.7 percent to 5.9 percent, while Sony Ericsson remained at the second slot with 8.1 percent market shares.

Samsung Telecommunications India's country head, Sunil Dutt said that the company has benefitted from the launch of new products and on roping in of Aamir Khan as their new brand ambassador.

Dutt said, "In January-March, we registered a good growth in our mobile phone business based on our channel expansion program, new product launches like the Guru 100, SGH-G800, Samsung i450 to name a few, as well as our brand activity involving Aamir Khan."

Even though Nokia had a considerable lead in comparison, the Finnish handset giant's market shares have dropped from 72.3 percent to 69.5 percent in India.

Nokia India managing director (mobile phones), D. Shivakumar declined to comment on the issue saying, "As a policy, we do not comment on market share."

Motorola India director (marketing, mobile devices), Lloyd Mathias said, "The only thing we can say is that there has been a rationalization of our portfolio in India. We are not competing in all segments and the focus has moved towards mid-to-high end phones. In fact, our average selling prices have increased in India," in response to reactions coming in after Motorola's recent announcement that its global handset shipment has dipped from 40.9 million phones in quarter four of 2007 to some 27.4 million handsets in quarter one of 2008.

Samsung, on the other hand, with this recent achievement has become the world's second largest handset vendor. Further, a series of new products at entry-level and premium segment are in the pipeline to further consolidate the company's Indian share. With existing vendors coming up with their plans in the mid-to-high end phone segment as Apple's much-hyped iPhone set to debut in India towards end of the year, Samsung has its sights on doubling its Indian market share by the end of 2008.