Buoyed by the successful launch of Galaxy S7 as well as price cuts of its earlier popular models, Samsung has overtaken Apple to emerge as the clear market leader in India's premium smartphone segment in the January-March quarter.
The two companies were neck-to-neck in the preceding October-December quarter with market research agencies differing on who was ahead. But the Korean handset maker appears to have pulled ahead of its Cupertino-based competitor in the previous three months in the high-value Rs 30,000-plus smartphone segment, according to both GfK and Counterpoint Research, the two biggest outfits tracking handset sales in the country.

Hong Kong-based shipment tracker Counterpoint Research's figures show that Samsung's volume share in January-March rose to 62% from 35% in the preceding quarter. Apple's share, in contrast, fell to 37% from 55%.

GfK, which tracks end-consumer sales in 50,000-plus population markets, had narrowly placed Samsung at the top in the October-December quarter last year. However, its lead has widened substantially and as per GfK estimates, the Korean company's market share in the January-March quarter is 50% as opposed to Apple's 41%.

Apple's drop in volume market share has happened despite a 56% increase in iPhone sales revenue in India. The iPhone maker, which reported its first drop in quarterly sales in 13 years on Wednesday, has pinned its hopes on India.

The company's chief executive Tim Cook said the Indian market was at the same stage of development as China's about 7-10 years ago.

The success of Samsung's latest blockbuster model Galaxy S7 launched last month and price drop on older popular models such as Galaxy S6 and Note 5 has turned the market in its favour, analysts said.

"The impact of Galaxy S7 sales was for half month in March and the full impact will be in the current quarter whereby we expect Samsung may further expand its lead in the premium segment considering iPhone SE has been lukewarm demand till now," said Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Tarun Pathak.

Industry executives said Apple is also losing ground in India due to the huge online discounting on iPhones which had led the brick-and-mortar stores to cut down stock.

This led Apple to recently ask its distributors in India to bring about online and offline pricing parity and stop arbitrary discounting on iPhones. Emails sent to Samsung and Apple did not elicit any response till Thursday press time...