Micromax leads 7-inch tablet market with 17.07% share, Samsung tops 5-inch

Telecom Lead Asia: Micromax is leading the 7-inch tablet market with 17.07 percent share in 2012, while Samsung tops the 5-inch tab category in India.

Market share of top tablet vendors in 5-inch category in 2012

Samsung (25.1 percent) is leading the 5-inch tablet market, while Micromax (14.3 percent) and Apple (9.1 percent) are in second and third position in 2012.

In Q4 2012, Samsung held 20 percent market share based on tablet shipments, while Micromax (15.7 percent) and Karbonn (8.1 percent) are the second and third largest players.

Market share of top tablet vendors in 7-inch category in 2012

Micromax has emerged as the number one player in 7-inch tablet space with 17.07 percent market share. Apple’s market share is 10.88 percent, while Samsung has a share of 10.39 percent in the Indian tablet market, according to CyberMedia Research.

In Q4 2012, Micromax shipped significantly to gain 19.04 percent share, while Karbonn’s market share stood at 9.85 percent and Datawind has a share of 9.64 percent.

Android is the dominant OS, iOS following with Windows making inroads.

The research report noted that Samsung Note registers the inception of a new segment, ‘Phablets’.

In 2012, Phablets constituted around 16.5 percent of total sales and this trend is expected to strengthen in the coming quarters.

CMR says India sold 1.09 million units for Q4 2012,  which accounted for 35.33 percent of the total shipments for the entire year. Tablet shipments for the full 2012 clocked 3.11 million units. This does not include Aakash tablets since these are sold to Government directly. CMR did not Aakash tablets since Government numbers are not fully consistent.

Tarun Pathak, telecoms analyst, CMR, said: “Samsung maintained the lead in the market because of the first-mover advantage with the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Note II.”

With the entrance of Apple at the top end and multiple Chinese and Indian players at the entry-level, the Phablet segment is only going to see increased competition in the foreseeable future.

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