Motorola plans to increase market share

Motorola India plans to increase its market share in mobile handsets this year by widening its sales reach and also product range, said a senior official.

Lloyd Mathias, director marketing- India, mobile devices, said that 2006 would be the year of enhanced presence in India for the company. Motorola India recently tied up with Bharti Teletech to increase its distribution footprint to complement its access to the mobile handset product portfolio of its parent, one of largest mobile handset companies in the world. Bharti Teletech is a part of the Bharti group that also provide mobile phone services.

Mathias, who was in Chennai recently in connection with the start of Motorola's exclusive store in the city, said the company had also invested in people to supplement its efforts in distribution.

Motorola India roped in Firdose Vandrevala (from the Tata group) to head its operations late last year. The addition at the top has been supplemented by people down the line, especially in the area of regional marketing. Sudhir Agarwal, director, sales-India, mobile devices, Nepal and Sri Lanka, likened the recent efforts to that of a start-up.

Motorola India's current efforts arise out of the fast paced growth in mobile connections experienced by the Indian market and the company's low market share here.

The current phone user base in the country is expected to double to 250 million connections by the end of next year. A majority of incremental connections are expected to be mobile phones.

Motorola increased its global market share to about 18.8 per cent at the end of the third quarter of the last calendar year from about 13.5 per cent a year earlier.

In India, the company's market share is below 10 per cent. The market for mobile handsets here is dominated by Nokia which has well over half the market, as compared to a global market share of about 32.6 per cent.

According to Agarwal, one reason for Motorola's lacklustre performance in India is that it didn't scale up in time to meet expectations here.

Anticipating expectations here is a big part of the company's agenda. Motorola has widened its product portfolio to include basic models for India such as C 115 (priced below Rs 1,650) that is manufactured in India by a contract manufacturer.

At a more sophisticated level it has handsets such as L6 and L7. Mathias said that L6, which was launched in India late last year, could have been the first global mobile phone to have made its world debut in India. "The challenge is to understand the next big change," he added.

As part of its India plans, Motorola has announced that it will eventually set up a manufacturing facility for mobile handsets.