Smartphone wars to pit Samsung vs Apple

There is not a single mobile phone handset that has stayed atop of the market for over three years. Initially it was Nokia, Motorola and Alcatel which dominated the Kenyan market. The honeymoon was cut-short by the entry of Chinese brands and lately Samsung has taken the market by storm.

Samsung took the lead in 2011 from Huawei’s, Ideos which sold 130,000 units four months after launch. Huawei CEO, Herman He attributed this to: “The rapid technological changes and increased mobile Internet use across the globe which has also led to high demand and uptake for smartphones.”

Although, the Chinese firm lead was driven by introduction of low-cost phones, it was unable to keep up with the market craze losing out to Samsung.

The latest report by market research firm IDC, shows that Samsung shipped about 56 million smartphone units in the third quarter of last year — double its delivery in 2011 in the same quarter.

In the period, the Korean firm captured 31.3 per cent of the market and made $7.4 billion profit. Its rival, Apple, sold 26.9 million iPhones during the period grabbing the second place with 15 per cent of the market.

Both Apple and Samsung are battling for the top slot in Kenyan market this year. To boost its chances of toppling Samsung from the lead, Apple has began selling Iphone 5 locally. The handset was unveiled to US shoppers in September and is currently available in over 40 countries worldwide.

But to maintain the lead, Samsung is set to unveil — Galaxy S4 — another tablet in April as Apple warms up to introduce Iphone 6 in the course of this year.

South Korean electronics company LG, will be betting on LG Intuition released in September to win over the market after good sales of Optimus L3 last year.

Both LG Optimus L3 and Galaxy Pocket went head on head in terms of the sales, days after their launch in Kenya.

Globally, LG came in third on handsets shipment during the third quarter of 2012. The latest MobiLens average figures covering the three-month period ending October 2012, ranked Apple second for the first time with 17.8 per cent market share, up 1.5 per cent points. LG lost 0.8 per cent of its market share to 17.6 per cent while Samsung maintained its stranglehold on the top with 26.3 per cent.

Sales trends are not in favour of Nokia so far, according to IDC report which shows that it sold 2.9 million Lumia smartphones in the third quarter of 2012.

Industry analysts say the Internet is a key factor in winning customers. A study by InMobi, a mobile advertising network shows that Samsung and Huawei  expanded their mobile data market shares in Kenya while those of European-based firms such as Nokia and Alcatel contracted.

The number of Kenyans accessing the Internet using Samsung phones in the second quarter of 2012 grew by 2.1 percentage points to 22 per cent as Nokia suffered 1.8 percentage point decline to 57 per cent.

The research analysed a total of 2.13 billion advertisements requested from mobile websites and apps within the InMobi network in Kenya. It covered the period between April to June last year and sought to establish the operating systems and type of handsets accessing the Internet.

The total number of Internet users in Kenya grew by 4.7 per cent to 11.8 million as at the end of March 2012. Data from the Communications Commission of Kenya shows that 98.8 per cent of the total Internet and data subscriptions are from mobile Internet data segment. The report says the onslaught by Samsung and LG as well as Huawei has eaten into the share of Nokia, Alcatel and Sony.

Asian mobile phone makers are engaged in price wars and are aggressively marketing their products in Kenya focusing on the low-end smartphone and the youth.

Samsung, LG and Huawei all use the Android operating system which offers an apps store and integrates other Google tools such as navigation maps and optimised web browsing.

“The smartphone market, in particular, will continue to be profitable as consumers are given a wider choice of new products at a wider range of prices,” said Mr Robert Ngeru, Samsung Electronics East Africa business leader.

Nokia, which holds pole position with 57 per cent of the mobile data market in Kenya has been forced to introduce the Asha range of entry-level smartphones which retail at a lower cost.