Nokia has traditionally ruled the GSM mobile handset market with more than 50 per cent share in India. In the overall market for handsets – that is GSM and CDMA combined – Nokia had a share of 32.6 per cent at the end of the third quarter this year. In fact, this has come down from the 40.2 per cent that Nokia enjoyed till the end of second quarter of the current fiscal.

The largest handset vendor in India has lost market share to Korean rivals Samsung and LG Electronics in India according to a report published by consultancy firm Gartner. During this period, the market share of Samsung Electronics rose to 29.6 per cent from 25.6 per cent and LG Electronics' share surged to 22.8 per cent from 12.8.

Kobita Desai, principal analyst, Gartner, says, “That's because in the CDMA market, both Samsung and LG have a first mover advantage over Nokia, which has a nominal presence.” She adds, “This is how the carrier support can make a difference to the (handset) business scale.”

In the GSM segment, Nokia is the undisputed leader with a 57-60 per cent market share. In comparison, Samsung, the No 2 GSM brand, has a market share of 17 per cent. The country's $2.1 billion handset market has half a dozen more global giants including Motorola Inc and Siemens AG, fighting for a slice of the mobile pie. Motorola and Siemens have 5.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent market share respectively.

The Gartner report also says that the country's mobile industry has more than 21 million GSM customers and over six million CDMA users. The user base is growing at about two million a month and is expected to cross 100 million by 2005. As Bertrand Biduad, vice-president, Asia-Pacific, Gartner, says, “The pace of growth has been accelerated by India’s adoption of a unified licensing regime, which has legitimised the use of limited mobility CDMA services for wide area cellular operation.”