It is the season of financial reports. Over the last few days, we have seen a number of big reports from all the major players in the mobile sphere. These reports give us insight into how a number of businesses are doing, how their fourth quarter’s fared in the market and their outlook for the year to come. In particular, yesterday evening some interesting news began to emerge about Samsung. Now, we had already received the fourth quarter results from Samsung a few days back and they were not exactly great news. That said, it was not terrible news either. Their mobile division was down (as predicted) but their chip business seemed to be striving.
Well, yesterday’s report was following on from the bad news on their mobile sector and specifically in India. Data had come in, suggesting that Samsung are no longer number one in India. Instead, that title had now passed on to India’s homegrown Micromax. Specifically the Canalys report stated that Micromax had occupied 22% of the fourth quarter market while Samsung only managed to maintain 20%. On the face of it, this would not come as too much of a surprise. Although, it is a surprise to say Samsung knocked off the perch in any market, Micromax have been on to some big things in 2014. They launched their sub-brand Yu and that brands launch handset Yureka. This is the one running on Cyanogen OS which caused all the OnePlus One issues in India. Not to mention, Micromax also has their fingers in the Android One pie, as they were one of the original Android One launch partners of Google. Then there is also all the other devices the company has released over the year, specifically targeting Indian consumers and a sub-$200 price point. In fact, according to Canalys, it was this combination of specifically targeting price and local demand that had helped Micromax dethrone Samsung.
Well, it seems that news was a bit of a sore point for Samsung as they have today come out stating that the Canalys figures are incorrect and that they still are India’s number one smartphone vendor. What’s more is that Samsung India do not only refuse the results of Canalys but actually state that the figures between them and Micromax (although they do not mention Micromax by name) are not even close. According to figures by GfK, Samsung highlight that their market share for Q4 in 2014 was actually 34.3% instead of the lowly 20% reported by Canalys. To avoid any further confusion. Samsung also highlights that their yearly market share was even higher at 35.7%. which according to Samsung India is “more than double” its competitor. Now, although data can be misleading or misinterpreted, it seems strange for figures coming from two different sources, to be so vastly different. A swing of 15% is quite a big swing and does show that something is amiss somewhere. What do you think? Who is number one in India? Let us know.