'Smart' progress in 'Made in India'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘Make in India’ initiative seems to have had a positive impact on the mobile handset manufacturing in the country. According to the latest data released by the Cyber Media Research (CMR), "out of the total handsets shipped during April-June 2015, 24.8% were manufactured and/or assembled in India compared to 19.9% in the previous quarter." The CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review report also stated that the smartphones were on way to account for half of all mobile phones shipped in India, currently adding up to 43% of total mobile phone shipments in the country. "India shipped 56.6 million handsets during the April-June this year with 43% of them being smartphones. During April-June 2015, smartphones accounted for 43.1% of total mobile phones shipped, up from 36.8% in the previous quarter." However, at the same time the report also highlighted the growing concern among the Indian handset makers following the "strong position enjoyed by Chinese brands in the smartphones category". "The contribution of Chinese brands grew 97% year-on-year during April-June this year as against 48% share of Indian brands," the review report said. And experts see the trend as a major threat to emerging as well as incumbent Indian brands of smartphones. “Although domestic manufacturing of mobile phones has increased, the government must introduce minimum value addition norms for mobile handsets as a threshold for qualifying to be labelled as ‘Made in India’. This will push the industry to devise ways and techniques to increase the value of domestic contribution across the value chain,” said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice. While South Korean major Samsung continued to lead the market with a 20.6% share of overall mobile handsets shipped, India’s own Micromax was struggling at second position with the market share of 12.3%. The Indian handset maker is facing close fight with Intex which is at third spot with a market share of 9.5%. In the smartphone category, Samsung’s market share was 24.6%, much ahead of the rivals.
August 19, 2015 | 4:45pm IST.
to success.