Smartphone shipments cross 5.5 million units; Android is most popular OS with over 56% share
According to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, 2Q 2012, September 2012 release, during 1H 2012 (January-June 2012), total India shipments of mobile handsets was recorded at 102.43 million units. During the same period, total India shipments of smartphones were 5.50 million units.
Table 1. India Mobile Handsets Market: Leading Players, 1H 2012
(in terms of % of unit shipments)
Player |
Rank |
Share (% of unit shipments) |
Nokia |
#1 |
22.2% |
Samsung |
#2 |
13.0% |
Micromax |
#3 |
5.5% |
Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, 2Q 2012, September 2012 release
Table 2. India Mobile Handsets Market: Major Segment Growth Rates,
1H 2012 vis-à-vis 1H 2011
Market Segment |
Smartphones |
Featurephones |
Total |
Unit Shipments Growth |
12.2% |
16.9% |
16.6% |
Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, 2Q 2012, September 2012 release
As per CyberMedia Research (CMR), in terms of unit shipments share during the 6-month period ended June 2012 the leading smartphoneOSswere Android (56.4%), Symbian (17.4%), BlackBerry (12.1%), Bada (8.5%), iOS (3.0%) and Windows Mobile (2.6%) on a base of 5.50 million units.
Table 3. India Mobile Handsets Market: Leading Smartphone Players, 1H 2012
(in terms of % of unit shipments)
Player |
Rank |
Share (% of unit shipments of smartphones) |
Samsung |
#1 |
41.6% |
Nokia |
#2 |
19.2% |
RIM |
#3 |
12.1% |
Source: CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, 2Q 2012, September 2012 release
According to Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice, “The first half of CY 2012 was witness to the high-decibel launch of Samsung Galaxy S III,HTC One X et al. The second half of CY 2012 continues to see launch of a number of high value, aspirational smartphone models such as the Nokia Lumia 910, Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Apple iPhone 5. This push from vendors and the increasing maturity of the India mobile subscriber community is expected to further push up smartphones as a proportion of total mobile handset shipments in the country in the next few quarters.”
Notes for Editors
1) 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 For the convenience of media, the term shipments has been replaced by ‘sales’ in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value.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.
2) 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.