India has inched past the US to become the second largest smart-phone market in terms of active unique smart-phone user base in the world with the base crossing 220 million users
Smart-phone shipments in the country grew 23.3% to touch 100 million units during 2015, compared to 81.1 million devices in the previous year, a report by Counterpoint Research said.
"India has inched past the US to become the second largest smart-phone market in terms of active unique smart-phone user base in the world with the base crossing 220 million users. This speaks volume for the scale India market provides for any player in the mobile connected ecosystem," Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Tarun Pathak said.
India still has a long way to go as the smart-phone penetration of the total potential population is still below 30%, he added.
Led by strong adoption of 4G LTE devices, smart-phone shipments grew 15% to 25.3 million units during the October-December 2015 quarter compared to 22 million units in the year-ago period, it said in a report.
"The Indian smart-phone demand grew strongly during the holiday season in the Q4 2015 quarter. However, the consumer demand waned since mid-November leading to smart-phone shipments decline 11% sequentially," Counterpoint Research Research Analyst Pavel Naiya said.
However, LTE shipments grew sequentially, as more than one in two smart-phone shipped was LTE capable, Naiya added.
The quarter also saw roll-out of marquee LTE services by couple of network operators including the soft launch by the much-awaited green field operator Reliance Jio.
With the declining average selling price of LTE capable smart-phones, Counterpoint estimates that LTE services uptake from the growing Indian smart-phone user base will be much faster than what the 3G uptake rate has been.
During the fourth quarter, over 40% of the mobile phones shipped were smart-phones. Also, almost half of mobile phones sold during the quarter were "Made in India" with over 20 mobile phone brands now assembling their phones in India.
At the end of the December 2015 quarter, Samsung led the smartphone market with 28.6% share, followed by Micromax (14.3%), Lenovo (11.4%), Intex (9.6%) and Lava (6.8%).
In terms of the total market (smart-phones and feature phones), Samsung again led the tally with 23.6% share, followed by Micromax (13.7%), Intex (13%), Lava (12.6%) and Lenovo (4.8%).
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