Samsung emerges No.2 in mobile handsets

Korean mobile handset manufacturer, Samsung, which overtook Motorola to occupy the number two slot globally, is working out aggressive plans to make its position in the Indian market more distinct.

The company which is almost neck-on-neck with Motorola in terms of market share, is putting all possible efforts to make them a clear number two in the Indian market, with a distinct margin.

"While the number one slot in the Indian market is distinct, the number two slot is quite blur. People always get confused regarding the number two handset vendor in India owing to the narrow gap of the market share difference with our nearest competitor. However, we are going to make things change very fast, and emerge out the clear number two player," Sunil Dutt, Country Head, Samsung Telecommunications told Business Standard.

According to a Gartner report Samsung's market share in the third quarter of 2007 improved 14.5 per cent as against 12.2 per cent in the same quarter in 2006. This gave the company undisputed number two rank globally, whereas its nearest competitor Motorola with a market share of 13.1 per cent became the number three player.

IDC's EMEA mobile phone tracker say s that in the second quarter of 2007, Nokia retained more than 50 per cent share, while Samsung and Sony Ericsson improved their positions. Even though there is no clear-cut study to show the market share in India, analysts say that Nokia has been able to maintain its number one slot with a wide difference where as Samsung has improved its position much better.

Samsung intends to invest substantially towards expanding its marketing communication, brand awareness, distribution network and others in the next couple of years.

The company will also invest in increasing the number of its Samsung Mobile Privilege Partners (SMPP) in India, its exclusive partners that sell Samsung phones in India.

The company has about 100 partners in India now, and Dutt said the plan was to expand it to all key cities in India. Besides the company has about 200 distributors in India, which is also in the process of expansion.

Samsung presently sells about 30 models in India. The company, however does not address the ultra low-end of the market. The lowest price of a Samsung handset in India market is Rs 1,700. About 30 per cent of the company's models, drive about 90 per cent of the sales.

According to the company, the high-end phones are not volume driven and are more strategically focussed on, addressing the lifecycle and fashion segment.

"This helps us to build the brand," says Dutt. Region-wise, Samsung will now be focussing more on Eastern India where the mobile penetration was relatively lower as compared to rest of India and is growing quite fast.

Following the launching of its first dual-SIM phone in India in September last year, Samsung is soon going to launch another dual sim phone which will support the GSM as well as the CDMA network. The one that the company has launched was in partnership with Tata Indicom.

Dutt said the new dual SIM phone will be available in the open market, and a buyer would be free to choose both his CDMA and GSM service providers.

"Some more dual phone models are on the pipeline, and should be out in a couple of week. A user can see both the networks on the phone and it can any service provider," said Dutt.

Samsung which has its handset manufacturing plant located in Noida, is in the process of increasing the output to meet the requirements of the Indian market.

"The capacity is there. We have the flexibility of scaling up the capacity to any number, basing on the demand in the domestic market. The company's design and development centres are located in Bangalore and Noida.