According to research firm Canalys, the Indian smartphone market was led by Samsung India with a 34 per cent market share in the third quarter of 2013. The other two top players in this space included Micromax and Karbonn Mobiles with a market share of 21 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
Other smartphone manufacturers such as Sony, Nokia and Apple had a market share of 6 per cent, 4 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively. China-based mobile phone vendors including Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE did not feature in the top five smartphone manufacturers in India. In addition, Indian players such as Lava, Xolo and Spice also failed to make it to the list of the top five smartphone manufacturers. The research firm points out that despite spending huge funds on marketing, players such as Lenovo and LG have not succeeded in making an impact in the Indian smartphone market.
In the third quarter of 2013, the Indian smartphone vendors shipped about 10.3 million smartphones. In comparison, a quarter of a billion smartphones were shipped worldwide in the period under consideration. The top five global smartphone manufacturers included Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and LG.
Canalys says that Samsung was the leading vendor across all regions except North America, where Apple was the leading player. Together the two vendors account for about 70 per cent of the smartphone market in North America. LG is placed third in North America, while Nokia has moved from eighth to fourth position as a result of encouraging sales of its smartphones – the Lumia 1020 and Lumia 925.
At the same time, smartphone market in Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) witnessed a growth of 64 per cent. Smartphone vendors shipped about 100 million of smartphones in the country in the third quarter of 2013. Greater China accounts for 39 per cent of the global smartphone market. In Greater China, smartphone market is led by home grown vendors such as Lenovo, Yulong and Huawei followed by Samsung. For the quarter under review, Apple emerged as the fifth largest smartphone vendor in Greater China ahead of players such as Xiaomi and ZTE. According to Canalys, Apple?s success has come through as a result of smartphone vendors? strategy to prioritise china as its key market for launching new products.
