Lava becomes Number 2 Indian Mobile Brand, While Micromax Leads
The emergence of Chinese companies into the Indian market has taken most of the sheen off the Indian phone makers. Even Motorola’s high specification, low priced devices have taken customers away from the Indian handset manufacturers. But with the combined strengths of feature phones and smartphones, the Indian brands have continued to grow. The companies have benefitted from the shift to smartphones in the lower segment, and their offerings are perceived as affordable. These factors have helped Lava reach the second spot on the podium amongst the Indian handset model.
The report was published by market research venture called Cybex Exim. The company took into consideration the following handset manufacturers: Micromax, Lava, Motorola, Karbonn, Gionee, Lenovo, Spice, Intex, XOLO, Panasonic, Zen, Maxx, Videocon, Xiaomi and Lemon.
To elaborate on their findings, Mr. Amit Gupta, Cybex Exim said, “To understand the market dynamics, we track the import shipments of various players on a daily basis. Domestic players have shown remarkable growth over the last two quarters; majorly credited to the success of Indian brands like Micromax, Lava and Karbonn. With local vendors reducing the price gap between the entry level smartphones and feature phones, usage for mid-price phones is expected to increase at a high rate. At the same time, the recent launch of Android One devices is expected to drive more volumes in the price sensitive market with many other local players geared up to introduce their devices in the coming quarter.”
Cybex Exim’s findings is as follows:
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Volume data of Top 5 Indian players (in Mn) July – September’14 – Cybex Exim Solutions Pvt Ltd |
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| Company | Feature Phones | Smart Phones | Total Volume | % Volume Share |
| MICROMAX | 5,058,002 | 3,723,445 | 8,781,447 | 31.2% |
| LAVA | 5,307,184 | 1,968,575 | 7,275,759 | 25.8% |
| KARBONN | 4,591,947 | 1,803,583 | 6,395,530 | 22.7% |
| INTEX | 2,542,483 | 965,627 | 3,508,110 | 12.5% |
| SPICE | 1,764,181 | 426,992 | 2,191,173 | 7.8% |
This has been a good year for Micromax. According to a study by Counterpoint Research, Micromax outsold Samsung in Q2 of 2014 to become India’s biggest smartphone supplier. Also, Micromax finished on the pole position of Cyber Exim’s report. The company is also taking some risks like introducing a Cyanogen-powered smartphone in the coming future.
Lava has said that the company will be investing about 500 crores in a phased manner to set up its own manufacturing unit in India over the next couple of years. This would be a positive step towards increasing tech-based manufacturing workforce in the country.
It’s great to see these Indian companies on a growth track. But looking at the competition they are facing against the Chinese companies, its time the companies up-ed their game. The phones need to get better in terms of specs and overall quality. The Indian companies may also want to take a leap into the flagship business and challenge the name brands.
