Nokia loses its grip on India's mobile market

Nokia once held 70% of India's mobile device market. According to IDC research, they now only hold 36.3%, which is an almost 18% loss from last year.

In other markets, the loss can be attributed to the increasing popularity of Google's Android OS and Apple's iPhone. The loss in India, however, is different because their market is much more heavily weighted towards basic feature phones.

The IDC report indicates that smaller companies like Micromax, Spice Mobile, Karbon, and Lava have begun to replace Nokia as the feature phones of choice in India. Their cumulative market share has doubled to 33% in only 6 months.

Nokia is disputing the findings of IDC, claiming that they overestimated the size of the dual-SIM market in India, and thus miscalculated Nokia's overall market share. Nokia also claims that IDC failed to include shipments from a particular factory. Despite Nokia's doubts, IDC is sticking with its original estimates.

The smaller-brand phones that once only appealed as budget devices are now offering innovative and appealing features unavailable from Nokia. Spice Mobile, for example, has introduced an integrated UV light to detect counterfeit currency, and dual memory card slots for quick inter-card data transfers.

source: IndiaTimes via MobileCrunch