Home-grown handset and tablet PC vendor Micromax has beaten international majors Samsung and Apple to claim the top slot in the Indian tablet PC market.

According to a CyberMedia Research (CMR) report -India Quarterly Media Tablet Market Review - between April and June this year, Micromax emerged the market leader with 18.4 per cent share in tablet volumes sales. South Korean major Samsung was second with 13.3 per cent market share. Apple’s iPad was third with a market-share of 12.3 per cent during this period.

Micromax, currently, is the third largest handset vendor in India after Nokia and Samsung.

“During the second quarter of 2012, about 47.4 per cent of tablet sales were from new entrants focussed on addressing application areas in education and entertainment segments. This trend demonstrates clearly that vendors are positioning their devices at India's youth,” said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice, in a release.

Tablet sales rise

Tablet PC sales, across brands, went up by over 60 per cent compared with the first three months (January to March) of 2012. Tablet PC sells stood at nearly 5.5 lakhs (0.55 million) units during the April to June period.

According to Micromax’s CEO, Deepak Mehrotra, the company had just one tablet PC during the period in which the study was carried out.

“We, at present, have a portfolio of five tablet PCs and the numbers next quarter should be better,” Mehrotra said.

In terms of revenue though, the average selling price of Micromax’s tablet PC – branded “Funbook” is priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 while Apple and Samsung’s price are substantially higher.

Average selling value

The April to June quarter further saw a dip in the average selling value (ASV) of various tablets. ASVs halved to nearly Rs 13,000 from the previous Rs 26,000 (between January and March).

“The average selling value of the tablets came down as majority of vendors in early 2012 launched their products in the Rs 5,000-10,000 price range,” the Cyber Media Research found. According to CMR, close to 90 vendors launched tablets till June. Around 80 per cent of the models had a 7-inch display with nearly 50 per cent of them having a processor speed of 1GHZ. Around 88 per cent of the models ran on Android.

> abhishek.l@thehindu.co.in