Samsung Disputes Indian Smartphone Market Share Report, Says It's Still on Top

Samsung on Wednesday disputed a recent report that Micromax has usurped its spot at the top of the Indian smartphone market in Q4 2014. The company said it continues to lead the Indian smartphone market in terms of total sales, claiming to have achieved more than 40 percent of the total smartphone sales in 2014.

The South Korean tech giant in a statment added that the company's volume market share in October-December 2014 quarter was 34.3 percent, the same quarter in which Micromax is said to have surpassed Samsung by selling 22 percent of the total smartphones, as per Canalys.

Backed by market research firm GfK's data, which Samsung says is based on actual sales, the South Korean giant says its volume market share in the smartphone market was 35.7 percent during the whole year. In addition, the value share of the company reached 40.2 percent, which it added "is more than four times the next player", probably indicating towards Micromax.

"In the entire year 2014, we continued to lead the market with innovative and exciting offerings. Our volume market share in the smartphone market in the year was 35.7 percent, which is more than double than that of the next player, while our value share was 40.2 percent, which is more than four times the next player. The GfK data is based on actual retail sales in 50,000-plus population cities," said Asim Warsi, Vice President, Marketing, Mobile business, Samsung India Electronics in the statement.

To recall, the Canalys report that was released on Tuesday said Micromax accounted for 22 percent of smartphone sales in India in the October-December quarter, ahead of Samsung's 20 percent. In total, 21.6 million smartphones were sold in India in the period, a 90 percent surge from a year earlier. Canalys said Micromax's performance was partly due to its "continuing appeal to mobile phone users upgrading to smartphones", Canalys said. Micromax and Samsung were followed by two other Indian budget smartphone brands, Karbonn and Lava, by number of handsets sold in fourth quarter.

India, which has the world's second-highest number of mobile phone accounts after China, is the third-biggest market by number of smartphones sold. Low-priced smartphones are the top sellers in a country where many buyers are upgrading from feature phones.

Written with inputs from Reuters