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Thomas K. Thomas

Riding on their popularity in CDMA segment

New Delhi , Oct. 25

With the Indian cellular segment adding nearly 6 million new subscribers a month, the Korean and Chinese mobile handset makers seem to be going the whole hog to garner a larger share.

While Finnish major Nokia continues to be the market leader by far, companies like LG, Samsung and ZTE figure in the top 5 handset manufacturers over the last 6 months, according to data available with market analysts IDC. Late entrant- Haier, from China, has also made inroads into the handset market.

According to IDC, Korean major LG was ranked second in terms of overall handsets shipped into India during the quarter April - June 2006 and Samsung was ranked third. US-based Motorola took the fourth spot and Haier was fifth. During the previous quarter of January - March 2006, ZTE was in the third spot and Samsung had the fifth largest market share.

According to Mr Naveen Mishra, Senior Market Analyst, IDC India, the Chinese and Korean handset manufacturers have figured in the top 5 largely due to their popularity in the CDMA segment. While LG has the largest market share in the CDMA segment, Nokia, Haier, Samsung and Spektra are the others in the top 5. In the GSM space, Motorola is now the number two handset vendor after Nokia probably riding on the success of the MotoRazr phones. Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG are the other vendors in the top 5 for GSM handsets.

Competition

The competition in the Indian handset market is hotting up with companies looking to bring in more features at lower price points. While Nokia's position as the market leader seems to be safe for quite some time, handset manufacturers like LG and Samsung are banking on the declining share of black and white screen phones (dominated by Nokia).

Mr H.S. Bhatia, National Product Group Head, GSM Mobile Phones, LG India, said, "The share of black and white handset (dominated by Nokia) is coming down drastically and that's good news for us. We are creating a differentiation in the market with handsets that, for instance, enable consumers to use the phone in their own language."

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Chinese, Korean handsets dominate top 5

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