Samsung Grand emerges on top: The Mobile Indian survey

In the rapidly changing mobile business, one year is a very long time. Ever since the Handset Hotlist was launched, models of Indian brands have had a difficult time finding their way into the list because of the clout of international brands such as Nokia and, more recently, Samsung. This month, for the second time in 2013, models of Indian brands outnumber those from MNCs.

As recently as in May 2012, only two of the 25 models were from Indian brands. The numbers rose till the last quarter of 2012, when the Indian figure held at nine models. Since February, however, the figure has consistently been at 12 or more.

According to a study of online preferences of over one million people who visited the website (www.themobileindian.com) in April this year, of the 25 most viewed handsets in India, 14 were from Indians players, as compared to 11 from global brands.

Commenting on the survey, a spokesperson of The Mobile Indian says, "Of late, we have been seeing Indian brands launching smartphones in the same price range in which MNC players are introducing feature phones. That is why consumers seem to be attracted to domestic brands."

A majority of the handsets from Indian brands that have made it to the top 25 in the last four months are entry level smartphones which are priced below Rs 10,000. Consumers seem tempted to check these out online because they can get only a feature phone from an international brand for the same price.

There is a new model at the top of the heap, Samsung Galaxy Grand, which has been on the list for seven months, a surprisingly long period considering models come and go all the time. It has climbed three ranks even as last month's topper, Micromax A110 Canvas 2, is the runner up. At the third place is another Micromax model, Canvas HD A116, which entered the list only in February.

In this month's Hotlist, similar to last month's report, Micromax and Samsung have eight and five handsets respectively. Other than these two brands, there are a surprising six handsets from Karbonn, two each from Nokia and Sony, and one each from Apple and BlackBerry.

The Relative Score, which was introduced recently, indicates the popularity of each handset vis a vis the leader. Last month, consumer interest was skewed towards a handful of phones, so much so that No. 9 onwards, all of them scored in single digits. This month, the enthusiasm is far more evenly spread: even the model at the bottom manages a Relative Score of 14.