Smartphone shipments contribute 20.4 % of total handset shipments in 3Q 2013
Android shipments account for over 96% smartphone shipments; Samsung is the market leader, followed by Huawei and Micromax
The Sri Lanka mobile phones market recorded sales (shipments) of over 0.69 million units in 3Q (July-August) 2013. This was reported in the Sri Lanka Mobile Handsets Market Review, 3Q 2013, December 2013 release published today by premier IT, Telecoms and Semiconductor & Electronics, Infrastructure and Lifesciences market intelligence and advisory firm CyberMedia Research.
In the overall Sri Lanka mobile handsets market, Nokia emerged as the leader with a 27.2% share, followed by Samsung at second position with 17.4% and Micromax at third position with 16.1%, in terms of sales (unit shipments) during 3Q 2013.
Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “The Sri Lanka mobile handsets market is showing a marked preference for smartphones versus featurephones that is even higher than the market in India. Consequently, featurephone shipments in Sri Lanka are showing a much faster decline vis-à-vis India. In such a scenario, emergence of an India brand like Micromax among the top 3 vendors in Sri Lanka is significant. This not only shows that India brands have a commendable market reputation and acceptability in geographies outside India, but also that these ‘affordable’ smartphones enjoy the right positioning in other high growth markets.”
“Indian brands, apart from reaching out to regions like MENA and LAT AM, must increase their visibility in South Asian markets like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives,” Faisal added.
Smartphones
Smartphone sales (shipments) touched 0.14 million units in Sri Lanka during 3Q 2013. Samsung emerged as the leader in the smartphones segment with a 39.0% share in 3Q 2013, followed by Huawei with 15.5%. Micromax occupied third place with 11.2% share of shipments during the same period.
“The first two months of the quarter witnessed a drop in overall Sri Lanka mobile handset shipments, primarily due to the seasonal impact and shortage of inventory on account of issues between retailers and distributors. However the market started picking up from the month of September with new launches from Tier-I vendors and a push from operators, as a part of their bundling offers and data pack schemes”, stated Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.
“The increase in shipments of smartphones can be attributed to significant price drops by all vendors across the island nation, resulting in a reduction in the ASP. The immediate impact of the price drop was visible on the decline in grey market smartphones sales. But, having said that, parallel imports and the size of the grey market in Sri Lanka is still a cause for worry”, Tarun concluded.
Notes for Editors
- This release is based on the CyberMedia Research (CMR) Sri Lanka Quarterly Mobile Handsets Market Review, published at the conclusion of every quarter.
- 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 or used interchangeably with ‘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 Sri Lanka soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.
