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Samsung claims 40 percent share of the Indian market, by value

Samsung has declared that it holds 40 percent of the Indian smartphone market, at least as far as market value is concerned.
By
August 5, 2015
Samsung Galaxy A8-12

The Indian smartphone market is big business these days, with an army of manufacturers dreaming about locking down a huge portion of the market in search of long term profits. Samsung has just claimed that it accounts for 40 percent of the Indian market, based on data collected by GfK. However, the company probably isn’t as big a player as it would like to believe. Here’s the quote:

“Our market share has crossed 40 percent by value in June this year. Since January 2015, we continued to grow for six consecutive months and widened the gap,” – Asim Warsi, Samsung India VP of marketing

The key word here is “by value”, so Samsung is talking sales revenue or its share of all smartphones in the country by their combined price, rather than the actual number of units sold. This certainly isn’t a negative thing, 40 percent of the market value within a country is quite an accomplishment and should be providing the company’s stagnant mobile profits with a much needed lift this year.

Samsung also stated that its market share by value was at 35 percent in Q1 2015 and that the company has continued to widen the gap on its competitors. Although, Mr Warsi refused to comment on how much revenue or profit it was making from all of this “value”.

Given that Samsung smartphone’s typically retail at a slightly higher price than the competition, the company’s unit market share is unlikely to be anywhere near 40 percent. At last check in, Samsung was hovering around the 20 percent mark in Q1 2015, right around the same percentage as local manufacturer Micromax. Other retailers are on smaller shares at below 10 percent each, as the region is currently thriving on diversity.

“India is an encouraging market with double digit growth,”

The company has been pushing a number of products to India to try and find the perfect forumula, with 16 smartphones launching in the country this year already. The Galaxy Grand Prime 4G and Galaxy A8 are two of the latest, but Samsung has also apparently been having some success with its lower cost, Tizen OS powered Samsung Z1, which retails for just Rs 5,700 (~$95).

Although Samsung may like to believe that it is miles ahead of the competition, the Indian smartphone market is still very much up for grabs. A new wave of low cost handsets are sweeping the county this year and the competition is only expected to intensify as the next generation, cost effective flagship smartphones arrive.