Talking of 2012, though a distant second and third Micromax and Karbonn are striving hard to expand their market share behind Samsung. As reflected in CY 2012 highlights of CMR research.

Samsung, Micromax and Apple emerged market leaders with 72 vendors shipping tablets in India during the year. Another key finding of the research is that  Android is the dominant OS, iOS following with Windows making inroads.  Samsung Note has registered inception of a new segment, ‘Phablets’.

Datawind which launched low budget Aakash2 tablet computer at the United Nations in November 2012 has been has been in the top 3 space in the 7’ Tablet category for the two consecutive quarters in the Indian market. According to Cyber Media Research Datawind is the third largest player in this segment in Indian market.

In its 4Q (October-December) 2012 report for Tablet devices announced today, CMR reported that India sold 1.09 million units for the period, which accounted for 35.33% of the total shipments for the entire year.  At the same time, shipments for the full CY 2012 clocked 3.11 million units.

Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Telecoms Analyst, CMR said, “The year 2012 and particularly the last two quarters (3Q 2012 and 4Q 2012) were significant for the India Tablets market. We have seen the market for these devices grow substantially in 2012, particularly in the second half which made up for over 70% of the total sales.”

CMR (CyberMedia Research) said that it was the first market intelligence and consulting services firm in India to launch a Market Review Programme for Tablet devices and has been pursuing this since October 2010, when Tablets were first launched in India. Since then, the Tablets market has seen rapid changes particularly with the emergence of the ‘Phablet’ segment.

In 2012, ‘Phablets’ constituted around 16.5% of total sales and this trend is expected to strengthen in the coming quarters. Moreover, the user profiles, market dynamics and the product orientation of ‘Phablets’ are very different from that for Tablets. In the light of these trends, CMR has decided to red-segment the Tablets market into two separate segments – Phablets and Tablets – starting CY 2013.

February 2013 has seen the resurgent Micrmax and Karbonn aggressively grabbing space in phablet market with the launch of Canvas HD (A116) and Titanium 1Smart phablets respectively.

Karbonn Mobiles launched the Karbonn Titanium 1Smart - India’s first quad-core CPU smartphone. The device is powered by powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

Micromax also launched Canvas HD (A116) a phablet which will for sale in February. The phone comes with MediaTek’s quad-core processor.

Commenting on this decision Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Telecoms Analyst, CMR stated, “At CMR we used to consider Tablet as a device with screen size of 5-inch or larger. But, with the definite emergence of ‘Phablets’ as a sustainable form factor in its own right, we will now consider only devices of 7-inch screen size and above as Tablets for the purpose of market analysis. Other parameters of the CMR definition of Tablet devices will remain unchanged. Moreover, we will continue to track and report ‘Phablets’ as a separate category of mobile device in the hands of individual consumers and enterprise users.”

As per the existing CMR definition, the rankings for the India Tablet Device market (5-inch screen size and above) for CY 2012 and 4Q 2012 are given in Figure 2 below, listing out the shares of top three brands.

Commenting on the rankings Tarun Pathak, Telecoms Analyst, CMR said, “Samsung has been able to maintain the lead in the market only because of the first-mover advantage with the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Note II. But this is not a sustainable strategy in the long term, as it has resulted in creation of the new ‘Phablet’ form factor, attracting competitors at both ends of the price spectrum to follow suit. 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.”

“This is also proved if we look at the same market with the new perspective of ‘Phablets’ being a separate and distinct category, based on the revised CMR definition for Tablets starting CY 2013. The market rankings for CY 2012 and change altogether with Samsung witnessing a major change in its standing.  So if Samsung has to be a strong brand in the Tablet market, it has to adopt a long term sustainable strategy along with nurturing the ‘Phablets’”, concluded Tarun.

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