India growing faster then US to become second largest smartphone market: Report

Smartphone sales in the country grew by 23.3 per cent to touch 100 million units in 2015, compared with 81.1 million devices in the previous year (2014), according to a report published by Counterpoint Research.

“India has moved past the US to become the second largest smartphone market in terms of active unique smartphones user in the world with the base crossing 220 million users. This speaks volume for the scale India market provides for any player in the mobile connected ecosystem,” said Counterpoint Senior Research Analyst Tarun Pathak.

India still has a long way to go as smartphone penetration of total potential population is still below 30 percent, he added.

Driven by strong adoption of 4G LTE devices, smartphone shipments grew 15 percent to 25.3 million units during the October-December 2015 quarter compared to 22 million units in the period last year, said in a report.

“The demand for smartphones in India grew strongly during the holiday season in Q4 2015 quarter. However, consumer demand declined since mid-November leading to smartphone sales decrease of 11 percent sequentially, “said research analyst Pavel Naiya Counterpoint research.

However, LTE shipments grew sequentially, as more than one in two smartphone shipped was LTE capable, Naiya added.

The quarter also saw the deployment of LTE services by two major network operators, including the soft launch by the operator of the long-awaited green field Reliance Jio.

With the declining average selling price of LTE capable smartphones, Counterpoint estimates that LTE services uptake from the growing Indian smartphone user base will be much faster than what the 3G uptake rate has been.

During the fourth quarter, more than 40 percent of the mobile phones shipped were smartphones. In addition, nearly half of mobile phones sold during the quarter were “Made in India” with more than 20 mobile phone brands now joining their phones in India.

At the end of December quarter of 2015, Samsung led the smartphone market with 28.6 percent share, followed by Micromax (14.3 percent), Lenovo (11.4 percent), Intex (9, 6 percent) and lava (6.8 percent).

In terms of total market (smartphones and feature phones), Samsung has again led with 23.6 percent share, followed by Micromax (13.7 percent), Intex (13 percent) Lava (12.6 percent) and Lenovo (4.8 percent).