Market research firm IDC's report on mobile handset sales in India during Q3 2010 took everyone by surprise, as it listed Chinese handset maker g'Five at the second spot with a market share of 10.6% , overtaking the likes of Samsung, Micromax and LG. According to the report, Nokia has the largest market share of 31.5% in terms of unit shipments, while Samsung was at number three with a market share of 8.2%. Following the report, Ranjit Yadav, Samsung’s country head for mobile & IT, slammed the IDC report, and told The Economic Times, that the company will challenge the data. This is not the first time when IDC data has been disputed by a manufacturer: Nokia, which has been reported to be losing marketshare in India over the past year, disputed IDC data in November, with Nokia India MD D Shivakumar telling the Economic Times in September that the figures were way off the mark and the shipments cited by IDC were not equivalent to actual sales and market shares. He had also added that that IDC did not count shipments from Nokia's Chennai factory. Now if IDC takes into account only shipments made to a country, rather than actual sales then it would be incorrect to treat this as marketshare: for example, g'Five can choose to flood the Indian handset market with its handsets, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the handsets are selling. A company that easily game this format of reporting model by shipping more handsets in a…
