India Mobile Handsets market ends on a lower note in 2015 as transition gathers momentum

Commenting on the highlights of the report, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Telecoms Analyst, CMR said, “We are witnessing a transition period for the industry. Transition from mass to niche, featurephones to Smartphones, 2G and 3G to 4G, ‘offline only’ to hybrid, that is, a combination of offline and online, and ‘imports only’ to domestic manufacturing with imports. This transition phase is bound to result in a contraction of the market in volume terms, which is what we saw towards the end of calendar year 2015, in particular.”

“Once this transition is over and vendors adopt the right mix of sourcing and marketing, and develop competencies to address the emerging/niche segments rather than the mass market, we should see the market rebound back,” Faisal added.

Year 2015 saw the entry of twenty (20) Smartphone brands into the India market, taking the total options a consumer could choose from to 161. Overall, there were 431 brands selling mobile phones in the country.

Commenting on this trend, Karn Chauhan, Analyst for the India Mobile Device market at CMR said, “This year the ‘Top 10’ Smartphone brands contributed to 82.9% of shipments, compared to 85.1% in 2014. We expect the market to fragment further and while this is a healthy sign, ending the dominance of a few players, what is worrying is the ability of new entrants to sustain their performance.”

“We have observed that most brands lose vigour after a quarter or two of their entering the market. Unfortunately, they are not able to keep up the momentum in terms of shipment volumes that they initially disrupt the market with. This leads to fluctuations in overall shipments and market shares – one of the results and inconsistencies that we saw in 2015,” Karn concluded.