Are Nokia’s Days of Dominance Over?

India represents Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) last dominant market, and it is now under siege by South Korean rival Samsung (SSNLF.PK), the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Of the 170 million handsets sent to the developing country in 2012, Nokia laid claim to about 26 percent of them. Samsung followed on Nokia’s heels, with 22 percent of the Indian market for last year. Nokia was once the world’s largest handset maker by unit shipments, but that title now belongs to Samsung. The company is now moving in on Nokia’s share in India the Journal said, citing a survey conducted by the Singapore research firm Canalys.

Canalys’s data shows that India represented 13 percent of the 336 million handsets that Nokia distributed in 2012, making it a vital market for the company to remain in control of, although the data indicates that its share is slipping against Samsung’s. “It’s definitely plausible that Samsung’s low-end Galaxy smartphone series will explode even more and cumulatively Samsung will edge out Nokia,” said Jessica Kwee, an analyst with Canalys.

“Samsung seems to be more in sync with the market trends for smart devices in India,” said G. Rajeev, an independent analyst tracking the handset market in India. “It is the one device maker with the largest number of devices on the Android operating platform,” he added. Android is the most widely used mobile OS in India, and Samsung offers 14 different models of its Galaxy line, ranging from 5,900 Indian rupees to 36,500 ($110 to $600). Nokia, by contrast, offers five models.