Feature phone sales drop for the first time in India: Report
Smartphone sales jump by 152 percent, while feature phone sales decline by 0.8 percent for the first time in July-Sept 2013.
Sales of feature phones, which were driving mobile handset market, have dropped for the first time in July-Sept 2013. The decline is mainly attributed to increased fascination with smartphones of the Indian consumer.
According to a recent CyberMedia Research report, mobile handset shipments grew 10.9% to 62.9 million units during July-September 2013 aided by 152.3% jump in smartphone sales. The total feature phones sales in Q3 2013 were nearly 51.8 million units and smartphone sales were 11.1 million.
Nokia remained the leader in feature phones and smartphones segment with 18.9% market share, followed by Samsung (12%) and Micromax (10.8%). Smartphones sales contributed 17.6% of the total mobile handset shipments during July-September 2013 quarter with Samsung as the category leader (33.9%), followed by Micromax (19.7%) and Karbonn (9.5%). Local handset brands have taken over nearly 47 percent of the Indian smartphone market.
“We have been saying that the way forward is smartphones. July-September 2013 is the first quarter to actually report this trend in numbers. This means vendors can expect to see large opportunities in the upgrades market where many feature phone users will upgrade to a smartphone,” CMR Telecoms Practice Lead Analyst Faisal Kawoosa said.
“So there is going to be a huge opportunity as well as competition in the entry to mid-level smartphone segments, which is where the volumes would remain for a while,” Kawoosa said.
“The India smartphones market continues to be a competitive space with close to brands vying with each other. Going forward, we expect this segment to be even more competitive as we expect some of the China-based ODM partners entering directly into the India market during H1 2014,” CMR Telecoms Practice Analyst Tarun Pathak said.
“Going forward, 3G smartphone shipments will continue to rise and we can expect to see a few smartphone vendors introduce 4G-enabled devices by the end of 2013,” Pathak added.
Source: TOI