MUMBAI: As the competition between Samsung and Apple gets hotter, consumer preferences are determining the ruling handset of the season. Apple’s iPhone 5 has emerged as the most viewed handset in India, according to the Handset Hotlist survey for March 2013 by The Mobile Indian.
The latest product from the Apple stable was followed by Micromax A110 Canvas 2, with Samsung attaining the third spot for its Galaxy S Duos.
The report states that this month, eight handsets featured were from Micromax, six from Samsung, five from Karbonn, two from Nokia and one each from Apple, Xolo, Intex and Sony. From the 25 most viewed handsets in India, 15 were from Indians players. This in turn has projected that global handset brands like Samsung, Nokia and Sony are facing tough competition from Indian players like Micromax and Karbonn.
While Nokia attained the fourth spot for its Lumia 510, the next three positions were again dominated by Micromax with its handsets Canvas HD A116, A65 Smarty 4.3 and A54 Smarty 3.5 respectively. The eighth spot saw Samsung again with Galaxy Y Duos Lite, followed by Karbonn at ninth and tenth with A21 and Smart A111 respectively.
Sony entered the list at the 16th spot with Xperia J, while Xolo featured at 19th with A1000 and Intex at 22nd spot with Aqua 4.0.
Commenting on the survey, The Mobile Indian spokesperson said, “India is a price sensitive market and handsets with good specifications at affordable prices will get consumers’ attention. That’s exactly what Indian handsets players are doing. This month we saw an interesting phenomenon. Whenever a new handset is launched, especially by an Indian player, the price of the older model drops but in the case of Micromax, though, when it launched Canvas HD the price of Canvas 2 didn’t decrease, and instead went up by Rs 1,000.”
The data was collected by a study of online preferences of over one million people who visited the website in February this year.