New Delhi, Feb 4: While one report said that Samsung had lost it’s top spot of being the top smartphone vendor in the country to Micromax, it was quick to respond with another report claiming it still had the largest market share.
GFK Data, a research firm, has named Samsung as the lead player in the Indian smart phone industry with a market share close to 34%.
This data was used by Samsung to counter the claims by the Canalys’ recently published report that in Q4 2014, Micromax captured 22% of the market share, while Samsung is second with a 20% share.
It also said that 23% of shipments were of devices priced under $100 (Rs 6,000), while 41% were of devices in the $100 to $200 range (Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000).
This means Micromax had almost 64% of the market to capitalise. There were a lot of apprehensions when the Indian company’s flagship line like Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue was priced below Rs. 12,000. All those have been put to rest by these latest numbers.
Meanwhile the GFK data claimed that it was based on actual sales and Samsung’s volume market share in the October-December 2014 quarter was 34.3% and the value market share was 35.8%.
According to Asim Warsi, Vice President, Marketing, Mobile business, Samsung India, “In the entire year 2014, we continued to lead the market with innovative and exciting offerings. Our volume market share in the smartphone market in the year was 35.7%, which is more than double than that of the next player, while our value share was 40.2%, which is more than four times the next player. The GfK data is based on actual retail sales in 50,000-plus population cities.”