The mobile phone industry showed signs of revival in the last quarter of calendar year 2009. Quite expectedly, major players ruled the roost with accelerated sales in the smartphone category.

But, the surprise came in the form of new vendors that garnered double-digit market share for the first time. The market will see a plethora of “look-alike mobile phones” in 2010, says IDC.

Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, mobile handsets research, IDC India said: “The mobile handset market got even more crowded and fragmented at the lower- and mid-market segments with the rise of ‘copycat models’ that have looks and aesthetics resembling those of high-end smartphones. These copycat look-alikes are often available for as little as one-tenth of the average sales value of smartphones.”

According to IDC’s India Quarterly Handsets Tracker report released last week, 28 new mobile handset vendors including Videocon, Lava, Karbonn, Micromax and Mobell managed a market share of 17.50 per cent for the quarter ended December 31, 2009.

This is against 3.10 per cent shared by 15 players for the corresponding period in 2008 and 0.09 per cent by five players in January-March quarter of the same year. For calendar year 2009, new vendors earned 12.30 per cent share.

Overall, the market evinced flat growth in 2009 due to lower sales in the first six months. Total sales for the year amounted to 10.15 crore units. Nokia had the largest share of 54.1 per cent followed by Samsung with 9.7 per cent and LG with 6.4 per cent.

While new vendors are beefing up their marketing initiatives, established players have outlined aggressive plans to sustain growth and increase market share. For instance, LG Mobile has announced that it will launch 44 handsets in 2010, out of which 15 will cater to the younger generation and six will be Google Android phones.

The company has set aside Rs 290 crore for marketing with a target turnover of Rs 3,000 crore from the present Rs 1,000 crore.

Meanwhile, the trend of “copycat phones” will continue and the market will witness launch of more such look-alikes following the launch of smartphone models by major vendors, says Mishra. The adoption of these phones is highest amongst the student and young working population. Their purchase decisions are driven by peer group and lifestyle influences apart from affordability, he adds.