India’s mobile phone makers are expanding their presence in the global smartphone market on the back of strong demand at home and sales of lower-priced devices, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Micromax emerged as the world’s 11th-largest mobile phone maker in the third quarter, surpassing HTC, Motorola and Blackberry, and became the No. 2 smartphone brand in India, with a record 14 percent share, according to the latest data compiled by Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest smartphone maker, maintained its lead in India, one of the fast-growing smartphone markets, with a 26 percent share.

Another Indian phone maker Karbonn ranked third with a 9 percent share, according to the data. South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. garnered a meager 3 percent in the South Asian country in the third quarter.

The rise of Indian phone makers rings an alarm bell for South Korean smartphone brands already facing severe competitions from Chinese rivals such as Huawei and Coolpad.

Samsung said earlier it does not expect a slowdown in demand for its high-end mobile devices but continued its moves to carve out new and emerging markets such as China and India.

India became the world’s third-largest smartphone market in the first quarter of this year with an estimated sales of 10 million, trailing China and the United States.

Indian phone makers have been trying to compete with global brands such as Samsung and Apple Inc. by first targeting niche markets of low-income rural consumers with low-cost feature phones.

Recently, they have been rebuilding their brand images as smartphone makers as well through increased marketing, according to market watchers.

“Indian phone makers are benefiting from an explosive growth in domestic smartphone demand,” said Cho Jin-ho, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities.

Market analysts said India’s smartphone market has a huge potential as demand for IT products there is on a sharp rise in tandem with the establishment of high-speed Internet connection.

India currently has some 67 million smartphone subscribers, a mere 6 percent of the total number of mobile users, but many feature phone users are expected to switch to smartphones that offer decent technical specifications at cheaper prices, according to market analysts. (Yonhap News)