Samsung is the largest smartphone
manufacturer in India. But when
Sammy looks down, it no longer sees
Apple chasing it. Instead, Japanese
manufacturer Sony has surpassed
Apple to become the second largest
smartphone manufacturer in the
country. Sony has been able to leap
over the producer of the iPhone, by
concentrating on low priced handsets
in the range of 10,000 ($166 USD) Rs
to 20,000 Rs. ($333 USD). A 300 Crore
($65 million) marketing campaign also
helped.
According to research firm IDC, based
on the value of phones sold, Sony's
share of the Indian smartphone market
hit 9.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013.
While that was well behind Samsung's
43% slice of the Indian smartphone
pie, it was 2.1 percentage points
ahead of Apple's 7% share for the
three months ended in December.
Looking at the actual number of
phones sold in the fourth quarter,
Samsung was on top with a 38%
share. Micromax was next with 13%,
followed by Sony and Apple. The two
had volume shares of 5.5% and 2% of
the Indian smartphone market,
respectively.
The top phones for Sony in India
during that quarter, were the Sony
Xperia M Dual and the Sony Xperia C .
For the quarter that just ended in
March, analysts say that Sony was
hurt by Apple's re-release of the Apple
iPhone 4
in the country, as an entry-level model
priced at $375. In addition, the forked-
Android powered Nokia X could also
have been a tough challenger for
Sony's entry-level Android phones in
the region.
"Some of the top selling models for Sony
are Xperia M Dual and Xperia C priced in
this bracket, which is one of the fastest
growing segments in the Indian
smartphone market." -Manasi Yadav,
senior market analyst, IDC India
No comments:
Post a Comment