"Part of the battle is already won; we will become number one next year," says Ranjit Yadav, who heads Samsung India's mobile and IT businesses. In fact, Samsung was already the market leader in value terms with a 32.3% share in the smartphone market, according to data from market research firm GfK, an industry official said on condition of anonymity.
GfK tracks retail sales of mobile handsets. Nokia, however, says the largest handset maker still dominates the Indian smartphone market. "Based on the figures from all third-party analysts, Nokia leads all India smartphone market both in volume and value terms," says a Nokia spokeswoman.
With the launch of its Windowsbased Nokia Lumia family of smartphones within a week, the company will strengthen its leadership position, she added. Most analysts say Nokia still leads the smartphone segment, which accounts for 6% of the 213-million Indian handset market.
But they also agree that Samsung is perhaps the most active and aggressive player in the mobile handset market in India and around the world in recent times.
"Samsung has champion products for each price segment and it seems to always have a few extra options more than any competitor in that space," says Saurabh Uboweja, director of brand consulting and design firm Brands of Desire.
PLAYING SMART
"What the hell do you do in office? This is stupid, totally stupid," fumes an angry boss at a staff member. "Totally stupid," comes a reply in an animated voice.
A startled boss takes some time to find out who is screaming back at him: an animated cat in a Samsung Galaxy Y. Then comes a voice over: "Desh smart ban raha hai, aap kab ban rahe ho?" (The country is becoming smart. When are you?) That's one of a series of commercials Samsung has lined up for its Galaxy Y (young) Android-based smartphone targeted at the youth.
This is perhaps the most aggressive campaign by Samsung to outsmart Nokia, although it has been relentlessly promoting its handsets across media platforms, and improved its smartphone market share from just about 5-6% in 2010 to be at the heel of Nokia today.
Samsung's mobile business is growing more than 70% a year. In the global arena too, Samsung overtook Apple to emerge the largest smartphone vendor in the July-September quarter by taking 23.8% share, according to IDC. In the overall mobile-phone market, Samsung with 22.6% share narrowed the gap with Nokia at 27.3%.
Source : India Times
