Micromax becomes India's mobile top seller

Micromax is an Indian Consumer Electronics Company headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the business of Mobile Telephones, Tablet Computers, 3G Data cards, and LED Televisions. Micromax started as the IT software company in 2000 and worked on embedded platforms. It entered in Mobile handset business and became one of the largest Indian Domestic Mobile handset company operating in low feature phone segments.

In recent news, Micromax has overtaken Samsung as India’s leading handset vendor, capturing 16.6 percent market in April-June Period. In the previous quarter, Samsung had led the overall market with 16.3 per cent share followed by Micromax 13 percent. In the Q2 period, Nokia and Karbonn shared also rise with 10.9 percent and 9.5 percent. The overall mobile phone market grew a modest 2 percent annually, while the smartphone segment grew 68 percent. Samsung is at second place in Q2 with 14.4 percent market coverage.

Micromax is leveraging its wider distribution reach, growing brand awareness not only in Urban India but also in Rural India with affordable low-costs handsets. Rural India customer is very price sensitive, so Micromax is building strength in Rural India. This company use chipsets made by MediaTek, which tend to be cheaper than those made by industry leader Qualcomm Inc. Local Indian mobile phone manufacturers had about 32 percent of the domestic market. India ranks behind China and United States in smartphone sales, with up to 90 million smartphones expected to be sold there this year.

However, these brands will have to work hard on their brand awareness, distribution, and service network to continue the growth beyond the early spike in demand in this very important mobile phone market. With competitor like Flipkart, Apple, Karbonn, Celkon, Nokia, Sony, and Motorola, Samsung and Micromax will have to change their strategies to be the top market leader.