Smartphone shipments grow 167.3% YoY to cross 9.4 million units; Samsung continues to be the market leader with Micromax and Karbonn at #2 and #3 positions, respectively

19.4 million mobile handsets shipped in April alone, Nokia retains overall leadership

According to CMR’s India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review, April 2013, June 2013 release, India registered 73.5 million mobile handset shipments for the period January-April 2013, registering a growth of 11.1% year-on-year. During the same period, 9.4 million smartphones were shipped in the country, a growth of 167.3% on an annual basis.

“The featurephones market in India has matured, whereas the smartphones category is showing promising growth. This is attracting relatively new entrants such as Micromax and Karbonn to start offering smartphones, particularly for entry level users who would like to migrate to a more sophisticated mobile experience”, stated Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

India Smartphones Market

The India smartphones market saw a rise in shipments by 167.3% during the period January-April 2013 over the January-April 2012 number, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 12.8% for the period.

Commenting on the results, Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “The India smartphones market saw the entry of two local vendors amongst the Top 3 positions for the first time, displacing Tier 1 international players. This shows that market dynamics have changed in the India smartphones segment. One of the key reasons for this is that a large number of featurephone users are migrating to entry-level smartphones. A significant proportion of these were already using the devices of local vendors and preferred to continue with a smartphone of the same brand. Thus, local vendors have been able to introduce their new smartphone offerings to this ‘captive’ customer base.”

“The trend of dominance of the India smartphones market by local vendors is likely to continue during the coming year. It is expected to sustain, till such time as one of the Tier I international players like Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC or Sony Mobiles launch a sustained marketing and promotion drive to regain share or introduce a new, potentially disruptive mobile device technology”, Tarun added.

Notes for Editors

1. This release is a part of the CyberMedia Research (CMR) Smart Mobility Market Programme.
2. CyberMedia Research (CMR) uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of handsets leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term shipments is sometimes replaced by ‘sales’ in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value. In the case of handsets imported into the country it represents the number leaving the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers. CyberMedia Research does not track the number of handsets brought on their person by individual passengers landing on Indian soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.
3. CyberMedia Research (CMR) tracks shipments of mobile handsets on a monthly basis. However, as per convention, the market size is reported on a calendar quarter basis where appropriate to the context; in all such cases this refers to an aggregated number for the three calendar months in the quarter to which the press release refers.