Motorola aiming for No. 2 position in India

Posted on | March 4, 2006 |

Article quotes Simon Leung, Motorola’s senior VP of Asia, saying that Motorola is close to being the No. 2 handset seller in India.

It says that Motorola is already the No. 3 behind leader Nokia and Samsung Electronics. Which means they have replaced Sony Ericsson at that position.

“There’s a perception in the United States that everyone in India is poor,” said CEO Ed Zander. “There’s as much opportunity to sell Razrs [the company's trendy handset] as there is here.”

Motorola started selling mobile phones in India in 1995. The company has realigned its India strategy, helped by the global success of its looks-first-features-later approach in handset design. Going by the activity in its Indian operations since last year, I was expecting it to be a top 3 player. But didn’t anticipate it so soon.

Until last year it was not a significant player, in a market dominated by Nokia and occasionally challenged by Samsung. But in the last couple of years Samsung lost any lead it had over others. I have been impressed by recent models launched by Sony Ericsson and it seemed to be slowly but steadily making inroads into Nokia territory. But the numbers quoted in the article are obviously different from what I thought.

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