Samsung Largest 4G LTE Device Brand in India, Followed by Lenovo: CMR

"Samsung currently leads the market with 30 percent share of devices, emerging as the largest 4G smartphone brand. The Korean brand increased its market share from 24.5 percent in the first quarter (January-March) to 30 percent in terms of units shipped," CMR said.

Lenovo gained significantly and was behind Samsung with a 21.8 percent market share, while Xiaomi rounded off the top three players with 17.1 percent market share.

"The best selling handsets in the 4G/ LTE segment were the A6000 from Lenovo and Redmi 2 from Xiaomi. This indicates that the India market is being propelled by shipments of devices in the Rs.6,000-10,000 price range," said CMR Telecoms Practice analyst Vikrant Singh.

Interestingly, Asus made an impressive start figuring in the 'top 10' in the first quarter. However, Micromax's share of shipments declined from 10 percent in the first quarter to 6 percent in the second. Sony was able to garner a market share of 5 percent owing to good traction of its Xperia M4 and E4 models.

The segment in itself grew 154 percent quarter-on-quarter to reach 5.7 million units during April-June 2015 continuing the momentum of doubling in shipments for the second consecutive quarter. The 4G devices shipped during the period continued to be predominantly smartphones with 97 percent contribution in terms of units.

"As per earlier estimates, we expected that India would ship 5 million 4G Smartphones a quarter by the fourth quarter of 2015. But, with the current trend of doubling of shipments every quarter, we can now realistically expect that number to be in the vicinity of 10 million; in that event total 4G device shipments in the country should cross 11 million units per quarter by the end of this calendar year," said CMR Telecoms Practice lead analyst Faisal Kawoosa.

"This is mainly happening due to four factors - reputed brands launching their LTE devices, for instance, smartphone vendors like Asus; vendors going beyond online sales and venturing into 'offline' stores, such as Xiaomi; players adding more models to their existing 4G portfolio like OnePlus, and the recent full blown launch of 4G services by Airtel, which enables users to actually use their devices for such a feature."

Also, the number of players in the device segment increased from 19 in the first quarter (January-March) to 25 during the second. "Most of the big brands reflected an increase in their 4G/LTE shipments during second quarter of 2015, except Apple and OnePlus whose shipments declined as also their market shares," said CMR.

"While 4G smartphone and datacard shipments grew at 157 percent and 107 percent respectively, tablets declined by 7 percent," the firm added.