Global consumer electronics giant Samsung has been fighting a pitched battle against Indian smartphone vendor Micromax over the past couple of years to establish supremacy in the lucrative Indian smartphone market, which is currently, the third largest in the world after China and the US. While market research and analysis firms Canalys and GfK have earlier differed on who actually holds the number one position in the market in terms of aggregate volumes, the one thing that’s been pretty clear is the fact that between the two of them, they hold the lion’s share of the pie in one of the mission critical smartphone markets in the world. Now, third party Android app store MoboMarket has come out with its study that seems to indicate pretty much what’s been known all along – the fact that the two aforementioned Android OEMs control over half the mobile phone market in the country.
According to the report published by MoboMarket, Samsung alone holds well over a third of the market in India. The South Korean company controls as much as 36 percent of the mobile market in the country as of Q3, 2015, which is actually an improvement over the 35 percent it held in the previous quarter. Micromax meanwhile, lag way behind with just over 22 percent share of the pie, but that’s where double digit market shares end. The rest of the market is pretty much a fragmented one, with Lava and Intex, the third and fourth largest vendors by volume, each barely latching on to just around 4.5 percent market share in the two quarters. It is worth mentioning that the market shares cited in the report are for all mobile phones sold in the country and not just smartphones. Which is why, Nokia still shows up on the chart with over 3 percent market share ahead of companies like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Asus.
As for Android versions in circulation, the report claims that Jelly Bean (Android 4.1, 4.2 & 4.3) and KitKat (4.4) are by far the most used flavors of Android in the country with over 43 percent market share for KitKat and almost 40 percent for the three versions of Jelly Bean put together. Lollipop (versions 5.0 & 5.1) is barely on about 4 percent of the devices and Marshmallow is yet to even register. Gingerbread (Android 2.3) meanwhile, continues to have over 9 percent market share, although earlier versions like Eclair (2.1) and Froyo (2.2) together only exist on about 5 percent of all Android devices in use in India.
