Shipments of Apple i Phone into India crossed one million units of for the first time during the October 2013-September 2014 period, the company’s fiscal year, according to research firm Counterpoint Research. Apple does not share its numbers for India.
“This is a notable feat for Apple as it captured almost half of the high profit premium segment, taking share away from Samsung,” Counterpoint Research said.
The firm also released data on the Indian mobile phone market share for the July-September quarter or third quarter of calendar year of 2014.
According to the data, Samsung continues to dominate the Indian smart phone segment with 25 per cent market share, followed by Micromax with 20 per cent share, and Karbonn with 10 per cent share in the third quarter of calendar year 2014.
According to the firm’s estimate, three out of the four smartphones will be 3G smartphones going forward. “The Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 8,000 price band is driving this trend and contributed to almost 30 per cent of the total smartphone sales in Q3 2014. Samsung led this price band during the quarter but the share is being chipped away by Micromax, Lava and the new entrants such as Motorola and Xiaomi,” it added.
According to Counterpoint Research, Indian smartphone market grew a healthy 64 per cent annually with growing traction from domestic and Chinese OEMs.
Motorola, which is now a Lenovo company, remained the fourth largest smartphone vendor with a market share of 4.7 per cent in the July-September quarter, according to the firm. However, it said there would be close race for the third/fourth spots between Motorola-Lenovo, Karbonn, Sony, Lava-Xolo and Xiaomi in the next quarter. Xiaomi had a market share of 1.5 per cent in the smartphone market, and is on track to double its market share sequentially, it added.
The firm also noted lot of firms hit the milestone of shipping over a 1 million smartphones per quarter for the first time in India joining the top three Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn. This included Motorola, Sony (for its Xperia smartphones), LAVA (excluding Xolo).
Counterpoint predicts the next brands in line to join the ‘million smartphone club’ will be Xiaomi, Xolo, Gionee and Intex.
Meanwhile, in the overall mobile phone market (smartphones plus feature phones) Samsung regained its lead from Micromax, after losing the spot in the second quarter, it added.
As per the firm’s data, Samsung had a 15.1 per cent share, slightly more than Micromax with a 14.5 per cent share. Microsoft-Nokia (11 per cent share) and Karbonn (9.6 per cent share) occupied the third and fourth spots, respectively.
