Voice&Data 'V&D 100' mobile handsets study. Indian mobile handset market grew 15 per cent in FY 2011; Nokia, Samsung, Micromax, Blackberry and LG among top brands

Chennai: Despite facing stiff competition from local brands in the Indian mobile handset market, struggling Finnish giant Nokia retained the number one position in the handset business in India in FY2010-11.

While the Indian mobile handset market touched Rs. 33,171 crore in FY 2011, Nokia's share was Rs. 12,929 crore, showing a marginal growth of 0.2 per cent over Rs. 12,900 crore it did in FY2009-10, said Voice&Data 'V&D 100' mobile handsets study.

In the recent times Nokia lost market share in low-end segments to home-grown handset makers like Micromax, Karbonn and Spice whereas its high-end phones faced a tough competition from brands like Samsung, BlackBerry and HTC. The Voice&Data study also said that revenues of the Indian mobile handset market grew by 15 per cent in 2010-11 from Rs 28,897 crore a year back.

The16th annual survey 'V&D 100' covered all the mobile handset companies doing business in India across categories like feature phones, multimedia phones, enterprise phones and smartphones. Both multi-national and Indian mobile phone firms were surveyed for this report. According to the analysts at Voice&Data, loss of Nokia's market share is mainly due to its lack of dual-SIM phones in its portfolio. Dual-SIM phones have become an increasing phenomenon among value-conscious Indian consumers. It was quite recently that the company launched two 'made in India' dual-SIM handsets.

For FY2010-11, Nokia enjoys a market share of 39 per cent, followed by Samsung with 17. 2 per cent, and its revenues crossed Rs. 5,720 crore.

While homegrown handset company Micromax captured the number three slot among V&D100 Top 10 mobile handset brands for FY2010-11, for the first time Canadian firm Research in Motion’s brand BlackBerry ranked among top 5 mobile phone brands in India, positioning itself at number 4.

During the financial year, Micromax grew 43 per cent to register revenue of Rs. 2,289 crore from Rs. 1,602 crore a year before, and grabbed a market share of 6.9 per cent, while BlackBerry garnered revenue of Rs. 1,950, up 61.2 per cent from Rs. 1,210 in FY2009-10. LG came fifth with revenue of 1,834, up 14.6 per cent compared to the previous fiscal. Spice marked a negative growth and the company's revenue came down from Rs. 1,040 crore in the FY 2009-10 to Rs. 920 crore in the FY 2010-11.

Most other Indian brands including Lava, Intex and Zen have shown almost a flat growth, said the survey. Interestingly, Taiwanese handset maker HTC saw a growth of 99 per cent, the highest among all the brands surveyed by Voice&Data. HTC's revenue for FY2010-11 grew to Rs 450 crore from Rs 226 crore in FY2009-10 and holds 1.4 per cent market share.

The Voice&Data survey also expects that the partnership with Microsoft and Nokia would be a game changer for the two companies post their expected launch of WP7 phone in the next 6-12 months.