Nokia, top mobile co in India

Mobile phone giant Nokia's market share in India has increased to 62.5 per cent in 2007-08 from 53.6 per cent in the previous year, according to a survey by Voice & Data.

Nokia's revenues from the mobile phone segment stood at Rs 15,000 crore (RS 150 billion), up by 30.6 per cent, compared to Rs 11,486

Crore (Rs 114.86 billion) in 2006-07. The Finnish company's increased market share seems to have come from the LG, Motorola and other players who have lost significant share.

The market leader is followed by Sony Ericsson and Samsung at second and third place with 12.8 per cent and 6.2 per cent market share, respectively. Although LG also has the same market share as Samsung, it has lost revenue by 37 per cent, the study stated.

Motorola, which is planning to sell the handset business also saw its share erode to just 5 per cent, losing revenue by almost 50 per cent, it added.

India's telecom equipment revenue touched Rs 95,407 crore (Rs 954.07 billion) in 2007-08 driven by the rising demand for mobile handsets and wireless infrastructure expansion by service providers.

In telecom equipment, Ericsson had revenue of Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion). Nokia Siemens Network, the merged entity between Nokia and Siemens had revenue of Rs 7,779 crore (Rs 77.79 billion) and Alcatel Lucent posted revenues of Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion).

"While Nokia and Ericsson retained their positions as the top players, Nokia Siemens Networks, struck major deals in the wireless segment. Expansion of mobile networks and broadband infrastructure and the introduction of 3G technology, will sustain the growth in the current year," the report.

Out of the total revenue of Rs 95,407 crore, handset business was Rs 24,000 crore (Rs 240 billion), it added.

According to the V&D survey, over half of the telecom equipment revenue came from carrier equipment manufacturers, which grew by 32 per cent to touch Rs 56,994 crore (Rs 569.94 billion) during the year. The enterprise equipment industry grew at 27 per cent to report revenues of Rs 13,210 crore (Rs 132.1 billion).

The phone segment, contributed nearly one-fourth to the total telecom equipment industry, at Rs 25,203 crore (Rs 252.03) recording a growth of 7 per cent.

Prasanto K Roy, Chief Editor of CyberMedia's business publications said: "This is robust growth for the Indian telecom equipment market. It continues to be driven by the rising demand for mobile handsets, especially beyond the metros, and the consequent wireless infrastructure expansion by service providers."

In the handset segment, revenues of mobile handset manufacturer grew 12 per cent to Rs 24,003 crore (Rs 240.03 billion), while the fixed handset sales decreased by 41 per cent to Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion), over the same period last year.

The Indian handset market recorded a 33 per cent growth by volume with 95.6 million pieces sold during the year against 71.8 million in the same period in the previous year.

Of the total handsets sold, 68.3 million were GSM phones and 27.3 million phones are based on CDMA technology. The GSM handsets sales reported a growth of 34 per cent compared to a 28 per cent for CDMA phones.