Samsung aims to oust Nokia in smart phones by December

Samsung Electronics, which has grabbed a leading position in the domestic tablet market, is now gunning for the top slot in the smart phone segment.

The South Korean consumer appliances major is targeting a market share of 40% in the smart phone category by year-end, which, Ranjit Yadav, country head - mobile and IT - Samsung India, said will help it overtake Finnish rival Nokia, whose market share in that segment was estimated to be 32% in August.

Global market research firm GFK Group pegged Samsung’s share in value terms in the local market at 26.5% in August.

“We are currently behind Nokia (in the smartphone segment), but will beat them by December when we expect to corner 40% of the market,” said Yadav.

The company has till now launched 12 smartphone models in the local market this year.  On Monday, it launched three new smartphones on Windows 7.5, Android and Bada 2.0 platforms.

“These models will contribute significantly to achieving the 40% market-share target,” said Yadav.

According to him, smart phones constituted higher proportion of Samsung’s total mobile phones sales than its industry share. “Smart phones are just 8% of the total cell phone market in volume terms while they are 12-14% of Samsung’s volume sales.”

According to research firm IDC’s numbers, Samsung was the second-largest player in the smartphone market with less than half the market share of Nokia at 21% in June quarter this year. Its Finnish rival’s revenue market was 46% in the same quarter while Research in Motion (RIM) and Apple trailed with 15% and 2.6%, respectively.

Yadav said depreciating rupee against US dollar was putting pressure on mobile phone prices as large part of the components used in local manufacturing were imported.

“The rupee has jumped from Rs44 per dollar to Rs49 over the last few months this is bound to impact us (cell phone players),” he said.