India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Prem (3), the son of an idol vendor, plays with a mobile phone.
Photographs: Ajay Verma/Reuters.

It's a mobile phone boom in India. India is the second largest mobile handset market in the world after China.

The total number of mobile subscribers has hit a high of 771.18 million in India. According to a research by Frost and Sullivan, the mobile handset market's revenue is expected to rise from Rs 25,591 crore (Rs 255.91 billion) in 2010 to Rs 35,005 crore (Rs 350.05 billion) in 2016.

At last count, well over 200 mobile handset brands were available at retail outlets across the country, according to CyberMedia Research (CMR). So how satisfied are mobile users with the wide range of brands available in India?

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Nokia scores high.

Nokia (Total awareness score: 99%)
Nokia, Samsung, Micromax, Blackberry score high in overall customer satisfaction. Nokia captures the lion's share of Indian consumers' mind space with a 56 per cent top-of-mind recall and 99 per cent total awareness.

According to the CyberMedia Research's 'India mobile handsets usage and satisfaction study 2011', 64 per cent users are happy with mobile handset brand performance.
The research also points to customer expectation of aspirational features with a large number expecting even entry level phones to sport features like MP3 player, Digital Camera.

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Samsung gets more popular.

Samsung (Total awareness score: 98%)
Samsung is ranked second in terms of total awareness.

According to Anirban Banerjee, Associate Vice President, Research and Consulting, CMR India, "Emerging mobile handset players with their highly innovative features have been able to influence the buying decision for first time buyers, especially the youth and blue collar executives.
This translates to a higher conversion of 'perceptual loyalty' into 'eventual loyalty' for new and emerging players vis- -vis the established global vendors.

Perceptual loyalty: 38%
Eventual loyalty: 33%

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Micromax tops among Indian brands.

Micromax (Total awareness: 86%)
Indian brands like Micromax and Spice have managed to attract a large following.
The bouquet of feature phones and smart phones at affordable prices launched by these emerging vendors led to customer satisfaction and delight for the Indian consumers while giving their more established global counterparts a run for their money.

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Spice mobile.

Spice (Total awareness: 78%)
In the mobile handsets market dominated by a near 100 per cent 'Total Awareness' of multinational brands, Indian consumers lapped up mobile phones with advanced features at affordable prices from new and emerging brands, reveals a Mobile Handsets Usage And aatisfaction Study 2011 of over 4,425 respondents conducted by CyberMedia Research (CMR).

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: G'Five phone.

G'Five (Total awareness: 64%)
Easy availability and a promise of efficient after-sales support became the other key motivators for end users to show increasing preference for new and emerging brands.

The India mobile handsets market has witnessed a huge influx of mobile handset brands during 2009 and 2010 which saw launches by a number of emerging mobile handset players for the mass market as well as niche segments in both urban and rural areas.

Perceptual loyalty: 30%
Eventual loyalty:30%

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Global brands show higher consistency in terms of perceptual loyalty.

Brand loyalty
Among the established, global brands, LG and Samsung users, showed comparatively higher consistency in terms of perceptual loyalty translating into eventual loyalty. LG had the highest perceptual loyalty of 39 per cent and eventual loyalty of 34 per cent.
Among the established, global brands, LG and Samsung users, showed comparatively higher consistency in terms of perceptual loyalty translating into eventual loyalty.
Users of new, emerging brands like Karbonn, G'Five and Maxx showed equivalent levels of commitment.

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: Consumers rated durability as the most important factor.

Durability, top factor
Consumers rated durability (35 per cent) as the most important factor while buying a mobile handset, followed by brand preference(29 per cent), service and support quality (20 per cent).

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: India has been a price sensitive market.

Traditionally, India has been a price sensitive market, and CMR's research has reinforced this trend for mobile handsets.

"Indian handset buyers are increasingly more feature conscious, applications aware and value conscious, rather than being plain 'brand loyal' in the traditional sense of the term," added Anirban.

India's most favourite mobile handset brands

Image: More takers for Indian handsets.

There has been a paradigm shift in the mobile handsets market with a strong uptake in shipments of 'value for money', competitively priced models by a large proportion of Indian consumers.

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