Samsung is no longer the leader in smartphones in India, as it is no longer the smartphone king in China and has never been in the United States.
Data from research firm Canalys shows local smartphone maker Micromax has overtaken Samsung as the biggest smartphone company in India in terms of the number of units shipped.
According to Canalys, Micromax accounts for 22 percent of all smartphones sold in India in the quarter from October to December last year, ahead of Samsung's own 20 percent. Two other local manufacturers, Lava and Karbonn, vie for the third and fourth places.
The latest data is good news for Micromax, which Canalys says earned its appeal by selling inexpensive, entry-level smartphones to Indian users who are upgrading from their feature phones.
Micromax, which is based just outside the Indian capital of New Delhi, has positioned its flagship line of smartphones, including the Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue, right in the $150 to $200 price range. Forty-one percent of all smartphones sold in India during the last quarter are in the $100 to $200 range, while 23 percent are priced below $100.
"Canalys believes catering to local market preferences will become increasingly important," said analyst Rushabh Doshi. "Micromax has been quicker than its competitors to improve the appeal of devices by including a wide variety of local languages on its Unite phones."
Other local smartphone makers, such as Lava, are shifting their focus on another major smartphone concern: battery life. However, Doshi says Lava faces the challenge of selling its smartphones, claimed to last an entire two days on a single charge, at a price affordable to the growing mid-level income market in India.
India sold a total of 21.6 million smartphones during last year's fourth quarter, making it the third-biggest smartphone market in the world, just behind China in terms of the number of units shipped. It also has the second highest number of phone accounts, again behind China.
Micromax had already become the biggest seller of mobile phones in India six months ago, shipping the highest number of feature phones and smartphones in the country, says Hong Kong-based research and consulting firm Counterpoint Technology Market Research.
While this is obviously good for the six-year-old Micromax, it proves to be another piece of bad news for Samsung, which last year was thrown off the top smartphone maker spot in China by local vendor Xiaomi before being pushed further down by Apple during the last quarter.
In the United States, Apple continues to dominate the market, with half of all consumers preferring iPhones, while only around a quarter have one of Samsung's phones.
