Samsung's Mobile Market Predictions

In 2010, Samsung with 280 million handsets sold worldwide as against a total of 1.3 billion across all brands put together was the second largest player in the Mobile Phone market - after Nokia with 410 million sets worldwide.

Statistics shows 130 million handsets were sold in the Indian market so far and Samsung was the second largest player in the Indian market as well with a 22% market share. The Indian market is currently the third largest market for Samsung - after U.S. and China - and accounts for 10% of its sales. Samsung's Hyunchul Ryu (Vice-president, Sales & Marketing, Mobile Communication Business, South West Asia) expects India to be their largest market for mobile phones.

Samsung plans to invest substantially in India, during the next four years, for R&D, marketing, portfolio and people - apart from its tentative plans to scale up the production in Noida while paying sustained attention to introducing more products that are specific to the domestic market.

Samsung has handsets spread over a vast price range (as little as Rs.1,100 to as high as Rs.35,000) and as many as 50 models in the market at any given time catering to a wide range of customer requirements. The price range and the product range together mean that even the low-end market is not being ceded by Samsung in their fierce quest to retain  the stunning lead of 400% over the No.3 player in the Indian market and narrow the lead of the No.1 player. Given their manufacturing facility at Noida where 1 million handsets are produced every month and their 3000-employee strong R&D facility in Bangalore, Samsung expects to create products targeted at the domestic Indian market and thus handle competition - big and small as well - effectively.

Though Samsung is not expecting substantial revenues as of now from the services market, it is not overlooking the services market. The Java Application Store in India, the first of kits kind in the world, is, with 5 million downloads, among Samsung's top markets in terms of downloads. Their tie-up with Hungama has made over 150,000 songs accessible to domestic customers.

If the last few years of relentless effort and results are any indication, the optimism of Samsung that India would emerge as its largest market by 2015 seems to be perfectly well-founded.