Sunday, 3 August 2014

Moto G helps Motorola race ahead of Nokia in smartphone sales

Within a year of re-entering the Indian market, US-based Motorola has become the fourth-largest smartphone seller in the country, overtaking Nokia in the quarter ended June, according to handset sales tracker Canalys.

Motorola shipped 955,650 smartphones in the three-month period, compared with 633,720 for Nokia, now owned by Microsoft, while in the January to March period, Nokia sold 583,160 smartphones, higher than Motorola's 379,310, Canalys said in a report.



The total for the first half of the year comes to over 1.33 million smartphones for Motorola, exceeding Nokia's 1.21 million.

As of June end, Motorola trailed Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn, which together shipped over 8.2 million devices in the quarter in India, where the smartphone market grew 9per cent over the preceding quarter.

The company, which China's Lenovo has bought for $2.9 billion, pending approvals, has been able to make its way into the top five smartphone vendors in one of the world's fastest-growing smartphone markets due to the success of Moto G.

The device was the first model it launched since entering India in late 2013, a year after it had wrapped up operations in 2012. It subsequently launched Moto X, priced at Rs 23,999, and Moto E, priced at Rs 6,999.

"Motorola continues to see tremendous momentum in India. We're delighted that our phones are receiving an overwhelmingly positive response from Indian consumers," India head Amit Boni told ET. Nokia did not comment on its market position.

Samsung maintains the lead with over 4.4 million smartphones sold in the second quarter, followed by Micromax with almost 3.1 million and Karbonn in the third position with 1.07 million smartphones.

For the first half of 2014, Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn had shipped over 8.5 million, 5.8 million and 2.3 million handsets, respectively.

India's smartphone market has seen intense competition, especially in the online market, where brands such as Karbonn and Celkon and new entrants including China's Xiaomi and Jolla of Finland are launching their smartphones.

Xiaomi became the top handset seller in China in the second quarter, as per Canalys, with almost 15 million smartphones dispatched, overshadowing Samsung and Lenovo, which shipped over 13 million devices each.

Xiaomi, called 'China's Apple,' sold all its smartphones within five seconds in a flash sale on online retailer Flipkart this week. It made its foray into India with an online sale a week before.

The company that directly competes with Motorola across price ranges also works on an online-only selling model, through a partnership with Flipkart.

Motorola cut Moto G's prices by Rs 2,000 this week, after which the 8GB version is available for Rs 10,499 and the 16GB model costs Rs 11,999 for a limited period.

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