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The year 2013 was all about smartphone adoption in India.
Smartphone shipments for calendar year 2013 touched 41.1 million, a jump of 172.2% from 15.1 million shipments reported in 2012. The fourth quarter of 2013 alone saw smartphone shipment touch 14 million, said a survey from CMR.
According to CMR’s India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2013, India recorded 247.2 million mobile handset shipments for CY (January-December) 2013.
“CY 2013 was primarily the year of smartphones for the India market, particularly for local handset vendors. A first for the India market was a marginal decline in featurephone shipments on a year-on-year basis. This trend is likely to continue with more vendors focusing on entry level smartphone offerings aimed at the consumer segment," said Tarun Pathak, Lead Analyst, Devices, CMR Telecoms Practice.
The India smartphones market during 2H 2013 saw a rise in shipments by 60.3% over 1H 2013, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 16.6% for the full year.
Further, 65.8% of the total smartphones shipped in the country were 3G smartphones during CY 2013.
“Nearly 70 vendors operated in the highly competitive India smartphones market in CY 2013, with ‘Tier One’ brands like Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Sony, HTC, LG and Blackberry capturing close to 53% of the total smartphones market, followed by India brands capturing close to 43% of total smartphone shipments. The remaining market of roughly 4% smartphone shipments was captured by China OEM brands, where we expect a few more players to enter the India market directly, instead of continuing as ODM partners to Indian brands”, Pathak added.
Samsung retained its leadership position in the smartphone category with a market share of 37%, followed by Micromax with 18.6% and Karbonn at 10.1%.
