Indian smartphone market crosses 30 mn unit shipments for the first time

Smartphone market in India crossed the 30 million unit shipments milestone for the first time in Q3 2016 maintaining its healthy traction with 11 percent year-on-year growth.

According to IDC, smartphone shipments clocked 32.3 million units in Q3 2016 with 17.5 percentage growth over the previous quarter.

"This seasonal spike in third quarter of the year can be attributed to the channel preparation for the festive season, mega online sales and early import of smartphones owing to Chinese holidays in October," says Karthik J, senior market analyst, Client Devices, IDC India.

4G smartphone shipments grew 24.8 per cent over previous quarter in Q3 2016. Rollout of Reliance Jio network has further increased the share of 4G enabled smartphones in India as7 out of 10 smartphone shipped in Q3 2016 were 4G enabled and 9 out of 10 smartphone sold by e-Tailers were 4G.

Samsung leads the Indian smartphone market with 23 percentage share with 8 percent sequential growth and 9.7 percent growth from the same period last year.

Lenovo Group (including Motorola) climbed to second place with 9.6 percent share of smartphones. Micromax slips to third position with a 32 per cent decline in smartphone shipments over previous quarter.

Xiaomi makes its debut in top 5 as its shipments doubled over previous quarter. With primary focus on online and minimalistic product portfolio, vendor has grown more than 2.5 times over the same period last year.

Reliance Jio sustains its fifth position in Q3 2016 despite a healthy 20.9 percent growth over previous quarter. With the commercial launch of Reliance Jio Service with attractive introductory offer, the LYF branded smartphones saw a sharp demand with reports of stock outs at some locations.

Overall mobile phone market shipments closed at 72.3 million units in Q3 2016 with an 18.1 per cent sequential growth.

Feature phones registered 39.9 million units in Q3 2016 with a healthy 18.6 percent quarter-over-quarter growth. However, feature phones market declined at 12.4 percent over the same period last year, pulling down the overall mobile phone shipments marginally by 3.3 percent.