Indian Mobile Handset Revenues Drop 5% In 2011-12: Report

According to an annual survey of the Indian Telecom industry by CyberMedia group’s telecom journal Voice&Data, the overall mobile handset revenues in India dropped 5% to Rs 31,215 crore in 2011-12 as compared to Rs 33,031 crore, last year. Around 30 handset firms were surveyed which included both national and international enterprises. About 6 of the top 10 brands including Nokia, Micromax, Blackberry, Spice, LG and G’Five witnessed a negative growth in revenues, according to the report. Note that MediaNama is not in a position to verify the accuracy of the findings.

However companies like Samsung, Karbonn, HTC and Huawei recorded a posistive growth. As per the report, the average selling values (ASVs) as well as feature phone sales, both went down this year.

Nokia was leading with a market share of 38.2%. The company led the dual SIM phones category but lost some market share due to poor performance in the Smartphone market and also the Android Smartphone category. Nokia posted a revenue of Rs 11,925 crore, 8% lower than last year’s Rs 12,929 crore.

Samsung, on the other hand witnessed a 38% increase in its revenues to Rs 7,891 crore at the no. 2 spot with a market share of 25.3%. This may have been possible due to a variety of handset variants offered by the company on multiple platforms like Windows, Android and Bada. Samsung’s Galaxy Note, sold 40,000 units each month since its launch in late 2011.

Indian handset company Micromax bagged the 3^rd position with revenues of Rs 1,978 crore, marking a 13% negative growth. Micromax noted a market share of 6.3%. Canadian BlackBerry maker Research In Motion dropped 25%, to post revenues of Rs 1,460 crore. Though the company was most affected, (it had a market share of 4.7% last year) it still managed to be at the fourth place. Karbonn Mobiles grew in its revenues to 32% to emerge as the No 5 player with a market share of 4.3% entering the Rs. 1000 crore. bracket.

Taiwanese handset maker HTC, saw maximum growth of 105%with a revenue of Rs 923 crore, from Rs 450 crore, that it reported last year, to inch a 3% market share. The other key players in the Top 10 list include Spice  (Rs 790 crore), LG (Rs 780 crore), Huawei (Rs 760 crore) and G’Five (Rs 670 crore).

According to the survey most India companies could not keep up with the competition with their major handset models recording a negative growth. However, entry level Smart phones witnessed a rise.