Indian Mobile Phone Market to Surpass Japan's by Year-End: Counterpoint

"The third largest smartphone market India is on track to reach $10 billion (roughly Rs. 61,821 crores) in smartphone revenues for the first time in 2014 and will surpass Japan in terms of the total mobile phone shipments revenue size in last quarter 2014," Counterpoint Analyst Neil Shah said.

The price-sensitive Indian customers are now buying premium iPhone smartphone as its shipment in India has crossed over 1 million for the first time, as per the third quarter report of Market Monitor service of Counterpoint.

"The Cupertino vendor (Apple) crossed 1 million units of cumulative iPhone shipments for the first time in its fiscal year ever (October 13-September 14) for India market. This is a notable feat for Apple as it captured almost half of the high profit premium segment, taking share away from Samsung," Counterpoint' Senior Analyst Tarun Pathak said.

As per the report, Korean electronics giant Samsung led Indian smartphone market with 25.1 percent share in July-September 2014 period followed by Micromax with 20.4 percent market share, Karbonn 9.6 percent, Motorola 4.7 percent and Sony 4.5 percent share.

The other smartphone brands jointly accounted for 35.7 percent market share in the third quarter, the report said.

In over all mobile handset market, Samsung again led Indian market with 15.1 percent market share and was closely followed by Micromax with 14.5 percent share.

"In the overall mobile phone market (smartphones and feature phones), it's a very close race between Samsung and Micromax for the top spot, as Samsung regained the lead from Micromax this quarter after the Indian vendor surpassed the Korean giant in second quarter," Pathak said.

The report said that Motorola, Sony and Lava (excluding Xolo) are aggressively shipping their phones in India.

Motorola, Sony and Lava shipped more than 1 million smartphones for the first time in India in a single quarter.

With just two months of sales, Xiaomi raced to capture 1.5 percent share of the Indian smartphone market and is on track to double their market share sequentially, as per the report.

Counterpoint estimates the cumulative Android One shipments to hit a million mark by the end of the year but will face tough competition from likes of Xiaomi and long tail mobile phone brands offering the same specs even at lower price points.The Indian mobile phone market is estimated to surpass Japan's by 2014 end, reaching the USD 10 billion mark, Hong Kong-based market research firm Counterpoint has said.