Nokia rules Sri Lankan mobile market, Samsung tops in smartphones

Finnish mobile maker Nokia leads the mobile handset market in Sri Lanka with a 46 percent share, followed by Samsung at second position with 22 percent and Micromax at third position with 16 percent, in terms of unit sales during CY 2011, according to CyberMedia Research.

The Sri Lankan mobile phones market recorded sales of over 2 million units in CY 2011. The total value of the mobile phones shipped in Sri Lanka market during CY 2011 aggregated to LKR 22.4 Billion (US$ 202.7 million).

Nokia also leads the 3G phone segment with a 53.2 percent share of units shipped, followed by Samsung and Sony-Ericsson with 25.6 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively. Total 3G phone shipments in Sri Lanka touched nearly 0.32 million units during CY 2011.

"With the spread of 3G services to all major cities Sri Lanka consumers would look to acquire and use more feature rich mobile handsets, thus fueling greater demand for higher generation air interface devices. This is an opportunity that vendors and service providers can exploit by bringing to market attractive value-for-money device-plus-service packages," said Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

In South Asia, Sri Lanka was the first country to introduce 3G services in August 2006. Srilanka is poised for significant growth in its telecommunications sector, buoyed by the end of the civil war in 2009.

"With increasing operator focus on data revenues and better 3G coverage the share of smartphones is likely to increase and consequently the number of models on offer from smartphone vendors are also expected to go up in 2012", said Tarun Pathak, analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

In smartphone segment, Samsung emerged as the leader in the smartphone segment with a 27.6 percent share of shipments in CY 2011, followed by Nokia with 25.4 percent. HTC managed to stood at third place with an 11.4 percent market share.

Smartphone shipments touched 0.11 million units in Sri Lanka during calendar year 2011. The Average Selling Values of smartphones during CY 2011 was LKR 45,350 (US$ 410).

In multi-SIM segment, Micromax is leading the market with a 37.3 percent share of unit shipments in CY 2011, followed by Nokia and Samsung with 24.6 percent and 15.9 percent, respectively.

Multi-SIM mobile handset shipments accounted for 35 percent of the total Sri Lanka mobile handsets market during CY 2011.

Android emerged as the leading smartphone OS with a 49.9 percent share of shipments in 2011, said the report.