A report by analysts Gartner said Samsung took 15.7 percent of sales by dollar value in the second quarter for the Asia-Pacific region outside Japan, compared with Motorola's 12.9 percent. Nokia is still the leader at 31.5 percent.
Motorola sold more phones in unit numbers than Samsung, but the Korean firm gets more revenue from each phone it sells, as its product line mainly features high-end, feature-packed handsets.
Last year, Samsung kept the average selling price of its phones at US$191, compared with US$154 for Nokia and US$147 for Motorola, according to a BusinessWeek magazine report.
A struggle in China
Gartner analyst Ann Liang told CNETAsia that a combination of factors helped Samsung.
The Korean firm had strong CDMA handsets from its India development centers. It had also invested heavily in advertising in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. And lately, it has begun to produce lower-priced handsets.
"Samsung has enjoyed the high margins of high-tier models, and in order to seek more opportunities, it's unpreventable for the company to reach down to low-tier segmentation, to reach big volume," she said.
Motorola, on the other hand, was dogged by a lack of new models and price-cutting by domestic brands in China, a traditional stronghold for the American firm. The country's cellphone market was also dampened by the deadly pneumonia-like disease SARS during the second quarter, said Liang.
Liang said that Motorola plans to increase its new phones rollout. The firm has also just reorganized its Asia-Pacific operations.
"We expect that Motorola will be able to respond to the challenges from rivals after its restructuring," said Liang.
Motorola still strong globally
While declining to comment on the specifics of the report, Motorola Asia-Pacific's Jeanette Tan reminded CNETAsia that the firm is still globally number two in market share.
"We're still number one in China in market share, while aggressively working to gain share in South Korea, Southeast Asia and emerging markets," she said.
Motorola in Asia-Pacific has "assigned some of our best people in the last three to four months in order to raise the competitive bar", she said. The company aims to double its market share in Southeast Asia from its current 8-11 percent by the end of next year. "We are very excited about the market response to recent product launches," said Tan.
The firm will also soon introduce key phones such as the A760 smartphone on the Java-Linux operating system, the MPx200 on the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform, the 3G phone for the regional markets, the A835, and other GSM phones, she said.
Gunning for number one
Samsung Asia's chief executive and president Kwang-Soo Kim said his firm is cementing its position with activities such as building up its software facilities in India, and specializing in tools development for display products and telecommunications.
"Thailand is also a regional manufacturing hub, so we plan to further develop R & D capabilities at our facilities there to develop localized 'hit' models for the region," he said.
In Asia, the US$40 million spent last year on brand-related activities is paying off, he said, "in terms of our financial performance achieving record breaking regional sales in 2002 of US$4.39 billion".
The firm aims to be the industry leader globally by 2006, he said.
Korea's Samsung has around 10 per cent of the global market now, compared to Nokia's leading 35 percent and Motorola's 15 percent, but the world's largest family-run conglomerate has said it is gunning to oust Nokia with a 25 per cent global market share and US$25 billion in revenues from cell phones within the next seven years, reported Korean daily, The Korea Times.
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