Nikkei Electronics Asia -- November 2009
Reports -- India Focus
India Mobile Shipments Grow 6.7% to Reach 101 Mn

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Nov 4, 2009 00:00 Nikkei Electronics Asia

India's mobile handset market touched 100.9 million units in the year ended June 2009, recording a growth of 6.7% from 94.6 million units in the previous year ended June 2008, according to the India Quarterly Mobile Handsets Tracker, 2Q 2009, September 2009 from IDC India. The report also states that in terms of units shipped, Nokia had the largest share of 56.8%, followed by Samsung with a 7.7% share while LG stood third with a 5.4% share in the 12-month period ended June 2009.

According to Deepak Kumar, associate VP, Research, IDC India, "The number of emerging mobile handset vendors in the India market has grown to reach 26 in Q2 CY2009, and their contribution to overall shipments in terms of units crossed 6.3% for the first time during the twelve-month period ended June 2009. This is as against only 11 emerging vendors representing a share of 1.2% of overall shipments during July 07-June 08."

Kumar added: "We see the market getting further crowded, especially in the lower- and mid-market segments. At the same time, an accelerated evolution of the market is at work, as the rising competition forces vendors to offer newer, richer features at attractive price points. In other words, a combo of volume and value is at work."

New Players Enter

A number of new vendors entered the India mobile handsets market in the last 12 to 18 months to carve a niche for themselves by offering feature-rich (eg, dual SIM card, full QWERTY keyboard) and application-rich (eg, IM-enabled) mobile handsets at attractive prices. They also introduced entry-level models for the price sensitive Indian consumers. 

The new vendors shipped 6.4 million units in the year ended June 2009, accounting for 6.3% of the total (see Fig). 

The year 2008-09 saw the launch of high-end smart phones (eg, Apple's iPhone 3G, the Blackberry Storm), entry-level as well as mid-market models, addressing needs of both the price conscious and value conscious Indian consumers. The "Marine" handset from Samsung, and the Micromax phone with a 30-day standby time were launched for the adventure enthusiast and the semi-urban and rural buyers, respectively.

According to Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, Communications Research, IDC India, "With the mobile handsets market in India growing in volumes, device manufacturers have started focusing on niche and emerging segments based on lifestyle profiling of buyers." 

"Overall, this trend points to the growing maturity of the India mobile handsets market. Consumers bought nearly 700,000 high-end phones also referred to as smart handheld devices," Mishra added.