India has arrived in India. In one small achievement, Indian company Micromax has dislodged multinational brand Samsung as top smartphone vendor in India.

According a report by UK research firm Canalys, Micromax has 22 per cent share of the total smartphone market in India, ahead of Samsung's 20 per cent. For last few years Samsung had occupied the top slot.

There are various reasons for the growth of Delhi-based Micromax. Their performances are partly due to its continuing appeal to mobile phone users upgrading to smartphones and price. In Q4 2014 in India, 23% of shipments were of devices priced under Rs 6,000, while 41% were of devices in the bracket Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000.

Rushabh Doshi, an analyst with Canalys says that "catering to local market preferences will become increasingly important. Micromax has been quicker than its competitors to improve the appeal of devices, for example, by including a wide variety of local languages on its Unite phones.” Micromax has recently launched YU Yureka smartphone and its Canvas Nitro and Canvas Hue are popular phones.

Many companies have launched devices with innovations like greater battery life. “But vital to success is selling these handsets at low price points to appeal to the bulging mid-level income market in India,” says Doshi.

Meanwhile, Indian market for smartphones experienced very strong annual growth of 90 per cent, with 21.6 million units shipping in the fourth quarter. The other major local vendors continued to jostle for third and fourth places. The top four players in Q4 2014 in India by units shipped were Micromax, Samsung, Karbonn and Lava.

India has the world's second-highest number of mobile phone after China and is the third-biggest market by number of smartphones sold.