Indian handset makers such as Spice, Micromax and Karbonn captured 14 percent of the mobile phone market in the year 2009 – 10. According to Voice&Data100 Indian Telecom Survey, the mobile handset market grew 4.2 percent by revenue during the financial year 2009-10 compared to 7.9 percent in 2008-09. In the year 2009-10 about 108 million mobile phones were sold. Revenue wise about Rs.27, 000 crore of sales was done in 2009-10 when compared to Rs.25, 810 crore the previous year.

All Indian manufactures share increased in 2009-10. Though Nokia remained as market leader with 52.2 percent share in the mobile handset market, their company’s share dropped from 64 percent the previous year. Indian manufactures who had just about 3 to 4 percent market share in the previous year, strengthened their presence and increased to about 14 percent.

With the exception of Nokia, all the other companies performed well in the year 2009-10. Samsung witnessed a growth of 17.4 percent this year compared to 10 percent last year. LG’s share increased from 4.5 percent last year to 5.9 percent. Micromax had a share of about 4.1 percent by revenue. Spice and Karbonn gained 3.9 percent and 3 percent in the year 2009-10, respectively. Lava had a share of 1.1 percent and Lemon with 1 percent. Max’s presence was relatively less with only about 0.9 percent.

The Voice&Data100 annual survey on handsets is based on the revenue of telecom equipment suppliers, including GSM and CDMA handset vendors. According to Voice&Data Chief Editor Prasanto K Roy, “Low prices for perceived high-end features. You get all-QWERTY Blackberry lookalikes complete with trackball, and even dual-SIM phones, for Rs 5,000,” “We saw demand rising for dual-SIM phones last year, but the market leaders had few offerings there. And while Nokia has many low-cost models, they are relatively sparse on features.” He further explained that, the low-cost handsets may fall short on applications, functionality, user interface and experience, and, often, quality of construction, solidity and robustness.

India and Russia plans to increase bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2015. Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma held discussions with his counterpart Viktor Khristenko at St Petersburg, to increase trade and economic engagement. Both highlighted the importance of continuous interaction for developing bilateral economic relations which will enable them to achieve the set target of $20 billion by 2015.

Current trade value between India and Russia is about $7.4 billion. Both the countries plan to increase cooperation in sectors like energy, pharmaceuticals and IT. An official source said, “They focused on cooperation in the field of energy, pharmaceuticals, and information technology, among other sectors.” Sharma said he is looking forward to Russian deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin visit to India later in the year to attend the Indo-Russian inter-governmental commission.

Sharma was accompanies by a large business delegation. During the discussions, Confederation of Indian Industries president Hari S Bhartia said the business from the two sides would have to take “drastic steps” to increase trade. The Business council on cooperation with India (BCCI) chairman Sergei Cheryomin said, “Russian businesses are targeting India after AFK Sistema’s successful foray into the Indian telecom sector.”

The CII and Russian BCCI has plans to discuss concrete projects and prospects for future ventures at the joint forum on investments and technologies in New Delhi ahead of president Dmitry Medvedev’s India visit this year.

India’s economic turnaround has boosted the hiring rate in the organized sector. A study conducted by Ma Foi Randstand, a global manpower consulting firm, said that 153,564 jobs were created during January-March 2010 and another 347,463 are to be added by June-end. According to Ma Foi Chief Executive K. Pandia Rajan, “The organized sector in India accounts for merely 9 percent of jobs. The government, the public sector and the private sector each contribute to one third of jobs in the organized sector. So, the positive sentiment of the organized sector should expand to the unorganized sector as well. And the pace of job creation in India, in fact, is little faster than what we envisaged in our study.”

Briefing on the city wise job creation, Rajan said that Delhi is likely be the largest employment opportunity provider with 38,350 jobs, followed by Mumbai (27,650 jobs) and Chennai (11,900 jobs). These figures were derived after surveying the employment trends in 650 companies across 13 industry sectors in eight major cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. The 13 industry sectors from which the data was generated during the survey included Information Technology and IT Enabled Services (IT and ITES), banking, financial service and institutions (BFSI), Pharma, healthcare, trade, including consumer retail service, energy, transport, storage and communication, real estate and construction, hospitality, media and entertainment. Other than these sectors, manufacturing of non- machinery and equipments, education, training and consultancy sectors were also included in the survey.

Soft drink companies registered double-digit growth this summer with the new lemon category surpassing in sales out of all the other categories. The annual consumption for this category is estimated to be around Rs.100 crore. Higher advertising spending by companies like Coca-Cola India and Parle Agro has enabled this noncarbonated soft drink category to be the highest grosser this season with 26 percent growth. According to Nadia Chauhan, joint managing director & chief marketing officer, Parle Agro, the company grew faster than the market, registering a 30% growth this season.

Coca-Cola India, also witnessed consecutive growth for the last 15 quarters. According to Coca-Cola India spokesman, “If one looks at our latest Q1 2010 growth numbers, Coca-Cola India’s unit case volume grew by 29%. It involved share gains across key beverage categories –both in sparkling and in stills.” According to an independent beverage industry report, about 120 billion litre of beverages gets consumed in India annually, out of which 55 percent of sales comes during the summer.

Beverage companies are shifting focus to noncarbonated drinks because of an increase in health consciousness among consumers. Lemon has emerged as a favorite flavor this season with 49 percent share in the juice market. According to Chauhan, “The lemon drink category presents a huge untapped opportunity. Our brand LMN has been performing well. We aim to grow LMN and make the brand as big as Frooti,” For Coca-Cola, Minute Maid Pulpy Orange has enabled them to be a leader in the juice segment as the company claims that Minute Maid is the largest selling orange juice drink in the country.