MUMBAI: India has now emerged amongst the leading markets for mobile by posting a 20.8 per cent increase in handset sales to reach 221.6 million units in 2012, according to a report by CyberMedia Research.
The report attributed the increase to a strong growth in the smartphone category. The handset sales in India stood at 183.4 mn in 2011.
Smartphones comprised of a small chunk in the overall handset market with around seven per cent, the high-end category grew steeply at 35.7 per cent to 15.2 mn devices in 2012, as compared to 11.2 mn devices in 2011.
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On the other hand, sales of feature phones grew 19.9 per cent to 206.4 mn in 2012 from 172.2 mn in the previous year.
CyberMedia Research lead analyst telecoms practice Faisal Kawoosa said, “Although we see a huge market ‘hype’ around smartphones, the fact remains that the Indian mobile handset market is still dominated by shipments of feature phones. On the other hand, smartphone shipments are growing fast.”
He further stated that it indicates India is still a ‘new phone’ market, where feature phones contribute to the bulk of shipments compared to replacements or upgrades.
Amongst the handset manufacturers, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia dominated the overall market with 21.8 per cent share, followed by Korean giant Samsung at 13.7 per cent. Indian handset maker Micromax came in at the third spot with a 6.6 per cent market share.
According to the report, the ranking remained same in the feature phone category, with Nokia garnering 22.5 per cent market share, Samsung 11.5 per cent and Micromax 6.5 per cent.
However, in the smartphone category, Samsung was the undisputed leader with 43.1 per cent share, followed by Nokia far behind at 13.3 per cent market share and Sony at third spot with 8.2 per cent share in 2012.
The report states that, while BlackBerry was at third spot during January-June 2012 period, Sony Mobiles displaced the former when the overall sales for 2012 were taken into account.
