Every second mobile sold is a dual-SIM handset

Micromax beats Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, reaches third slot

Bhaskar Hazarika & Sanjeev Sharma

New Delhi: Every second mobile sold in the Indian market is a dual-SIM handset. Around 50 per cent of the mobiles sold in the Indian market are in the dual-SIM card handset category.

The handset market in India is attracting a large number of new vendors, taking the number of vendors from 8 to 56.

Citigroup report states, “The total number of new handset sold in India are about 9-10 million per month and multi-SIM subscribers to be 40-50 per cent of reported addition.” The report states that Nokia is leading the market, followed by Samsung and Micromax.

Incumbent handset vendors such as LG and Sony Ericsson are in the league.

According to market estimates Nokia has a market share of around 58 per cent, Samsung at 13 per cent and Micromax at 10 per cent. The mobile handset market is pegged at Rs 35,000 crore in 2010 and with the availability of entry-level cheap phones in the market, the market is likely to escalade.

Business director of Micromax Mobile, Vikas Jain told Financial Chronicle that in January the company sold 1 million handsets and the numbers are increasing. “We are clearly the third largest handset vendor in the market today. In January we sold 1 million handsets and within this fiscal ending March we are planning to sell around 11 million units. If we look at the consumer buying pattern 40 per cent of our customers are first time users and 60 per cent are upgrades,” Jain said.

At present the around new entrants have a market share of more than 15 per cent. The new entrants into this space include Micromax, Lava Mobiles, Karbonn, Mobell, Videocon, Movil and also some know brands such as Usha, Salora, Onida and Orpat.

The Indian handset industry shipped around 130 million units in 2009 and the numbers are likely to escalate to 150 million in 2010.

With Indian telecom industry adding between 15 to 17 million subscribers every month, analysts see space for new players in the market. Analysts say that these new entrants forecast huge competition primarily in the tier two and three markets. From the average price of a handset from Rs 5500 it has come down to Rs 2300, encouraging customers to switch to new handsets. Usually a lifeline of a mobile handset is estimated to be around 18 months.

© Financial Chronicle