Indian Smartphone Shipments Grew 20% Annually, 4G Handsets Witness 2400

The report by Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor service has also claimed that Samsung led the overall mobile phone market in India, as well as the smartphone segment, in Q3 2015.

A new market research report has claimed that one in three smartphones sold in India were through online channels. It also added that most of the smartphones sold during this quarter were made in India.

“The Indian mobile phone market demand is back on track after declining for two consecutive quarters fueled by cheaper smartphones as more and more feature phone users quickly upgrade to smartphones for the first time”, said Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research. LTE refers to the high-speed 4G wireless technology, and Phablet typically refers to smartphones with screen size of 5 inches or more.

Xiaomi has become one of the world’s biggest smartphone brands based nearly entirely on its strong sales in its Chinese homeland.

The growth witnessed in the India mobile market was attributed to the feature phones segment and not smartphones after a spell of multiple quarters. Intex has even grabbed the third spot in the report, for sequentially holding its momentum from the second quarter of 2015 in both the said segments.

Emulating ecommerce platforms in India, Xiaomi also started Diwali sale from November 3 till November 5, which saw over 1 million unique visitors to the Mi.com site on day one.

Xiaomi brought 600,000 phones into India in the third quarter, while Lenovo and its Motorola Mobility unit together brought in roughly 2 million, said Neil Shah, co-founder and director of Counterpoint.

“While the general belief at the moment is that smartphone is the growth catalyst for the India mobile handsets market, the results announced today reveal a contrarian view”, CMR Lead Analyst Telecom Practice Faisal Kawoosa said. It’s hard to argue the theory that the company selling the most smartphones is the one in a dominant market position, and Samsung has been selling an bad lot of smartphones.

The A series’ design language is also trickling down to the new J series, helping Samsung strengthen its position in that segment.

He added that LTE smartphones with sub $100 pricing were seeing significant proliferation. Samsung had a market share of 23 percent share, followed by Micromax at 17 per cent.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. said its sales in India have been growing at a quarterly average of 45% and disputed data from a research firm pointing to its first decline in phone shipments into the country since debuting in June.