The mobile phone landscape in India is on steep rise, even after about a decade of incessant growth, and from the looks of it, it does not look like it will slow down anytime soon.
Just to give you an idea of the growth, around 95 phone brands launched 1137 new phone models in 2014. This means 3 new phones were launched everyday throughout the year in 2014! In comparison, 957 new phones were launched in 2013, a growth of nearly 20 percent.
The mobile phone landscape report released by 91mobiles.com found that not only the growth in number of mobile phones has been tremendous, even the average price of the phones has increased by almost 18% over the course of the year.
One of the reasons for the phenomenal growth has been that new and resurgent brands like Xiaomi, Motorola and Lenovo grew sharply in their popularity.
Interestingly, Indian and International brands both grew at same pace. However, number of new phones launched by Indian brands were more than double that of International brands (476 vs 215).
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Online Only Model, A Big Hit!
Selling online only model grew sharply in popularity over the course of the year. Searches made by users in regards to online-only models grew from less than 5 percent in February to almost 20 percent by the end of the year.
Popularity of Smartphones in Budget Segments
Smartphones in the Budget segment (Rs. 5k to Rs. 15k) were most popular and new entrants to Indian market mostly attacked this segment. Brands like Obi, Oppo, Asus Mi and Motorola each launched multiple phone models in this segment in India.
Compared to previous year, 2014 saw the popularity of budget segment rise by over 13 percentage points. Popularity of budget smartphones grew from 46% in 2013 to close to 60% in 2014.
While the overall mobile price witnessed a 18 percent rise, when it came to Smartphones, the average selling price of smartphones fell by 19 percent over the course of the year. The average selling price of the smartphones in January 2014 was Rs. 8,118, which came down to about Rs. 6,603 by December 2014.
Failure of Android One Initiative
Google’s much talked about Android One initiative launched last year did not find too many takers. Multiple Android One Smartphones were launched by multiple brands, but none of them even made to top 100 phones on the basis of popularity on 91mobile.com website. The price point of the phones at Rs. 6000 was still higher than what Indians had expected and hence not many people went for these phone.
In addition to this launch of feature rich phones at lower price point like Redmi 1S severely dented their demand.
Same Spec’ed phones Price halved in One Year
In 2014, with arrival of value for money phones from Asus, Motorola, Mi and Huawei, the high specification phones witnessed price fall by more than half. Cheapest full HD phone in 2013 was priced at Rs. 15k, the price for same came down to Rs. 8k in 2014. Cheapest quad-core phone price came down from Rs. 5.5k to Rs. 3.5k. Check out the comparison below.
Other Key Highlights
- Despite the smartphone segment being abuzz, feature phone launches kept growing.
- Indian brands grew in the sub-15k range, but felt the heat from international names in the 15k+ segment
- International brands virtually vacated the entry-level segment (below Rs 5k) and shifted their focus to higher-range devices
- Karbonn launched maximum number of smartphones in 2014 followed by Intex, Micromax, Lava and XOLO.
- International brands dominated when it came to launches priced above Rs 15,000. Samsung, LG and HTC all launched 12 phones in that category
- Samsung focused in the above 25k segment, and reduced launches in all segments below 25k
- Micromax started moving up the value chain from feature phones to smartphones
- Samsung still had most popular smartphones in all 3 segments – Budget, mid and high.
- 60% of all smartphones launched in 2014 were powered by quad-core and above processors
- Phablets constitute ~60% of all devices in the super-premium segment (above 35k)
- Over 60% of devices above Rs 5k packed in a gigabyte or more of RAM
- Smartphones with 13-megapixel and above registered massive growth
- 35 phones launched across all price segments in 2014 were slimmer than iPhone 5s
Here is the entire report from 91mobiles.com.
Need a correction here : In comparison, 957 new phones were launched in 2015, a growth of nearly 20 percent.
It should be 2013 and not 2015.
Thanks for pointing out Siddharth. It was a typo, corrected now!