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The growth of Indian mobile-handsets is on the rise as brands in this space grabbed more of the domestic handset market in 2009-10. According to the V&D Indian Telecom Survey, conducted by CyberMedia telecom journal Voice&Data, Indian mobile-handset brands have claimed 14 percent market share by revenue, a sharp increase from 3-4 percent the previous year.

The Indian brand mix included Micromax, which has 41. percent share of the market by revenue; Spice, which has 3.9 percent; Karbonn with 3 percent, Lava with 1.1 percent, Lemon with 1 percent and Max with 0.9 percent.

When compared with the previous year, these brands gained a cumulative 10 percent share in the very competitive Indian market. Samsung (News - Alert) gained 7 percentage points as Nokia lost 12 percentage points. The handsets gaining share are locally branded models sourced from manufacturers in China or Taiwan.

In reference to the big gain, Voice&Data chief editor Prasanto K Roy said in a statement, "Low prices for perceived high-end features. You get all-QWERTY Blackberry look alikes complete with trackball, and even dual-SIM phones, for Rs 5,000. We saw demand rising for dual-SIM phones last year, but the market leaders had few offerings there. And while Nokia (News - Alert) has many low-cost models, they are relatively sparse on features." 

Low-cost local brands don't beat all market-leaders, Roy noted. These brands could fall short in applications or functionality, user interface and experience. T

They also tend to miss the mark on construction, solidity and robustness. The short life cycles of handsets today encourages buyers to experiment with different models.

In the fiscal year 2009-10, the mobile handset market grew 4.2 percent by revenue. In 2008-09, the growth was 7.9 percent and in 2007-08, 11.9 percent. This low revenue growth disguises the large numbers sold, but highlights the fact that most sales completed are of low priced handsets and the average sale price has been dropping each year.

During the 2009-10 fiscal year, roughly 108 million mobile phones were sold within India. The number of mobile subscribers in the country is growing substantially more so than the number of handsets sold. In fact, 192 million mobile subscribers were added in the last fiscal year and a large number of subscribers have more than one SIM card.

The Voice&Data 100 annual survey on handsets is based on the revenue of telecom equipment suppliers, including GSM and CDMA vendors. Despite its measurable loss, Nokia remains the market leader in the space with 52 percent share. The company launched 22 devices during the year, which were marketed through more than 200,000 retail outlets across the country. Samsung claims 17.4 percent of the market.