4G is the flavour of 2015 – just a year back, only some flagship smartphones had 4G on them, however, today every third smartphone sold is a 4G LTE handset. According to counterpoint research report for 3Q 2015, 4G LTE smartphones witnessed a rise of whopping 2400 percent compared to last year.
Overall Smartphone growth also remained quite healthy with a growth rate of 20 percent annually and 12% sequentially in Q3 2015 (July-Sept). According to the report more than 1 in 3 mobile phones sold is a smartphone.
This is a great news for Indian smartphone market, especially because the report shows that market demand is back on track after declining for two consecutive quarters fueled by cheaper smartphones as more and more feature phone users quickly upgrade to smartphones for the first time.
Some Highlights
- Make in India: One in Four mobile phones sold during the quarter was “Made in India”.
- 4G LTE Handsets: One in Three smartphones shipped were LTE smartphone
- Online Smartphone Sales: One in three smartphones sold were through online channels
- Every third mobile phone sold was a smartphone in third quarter
Smartphone Market Share
While Samsung increased the market share in terms of overall mobile handset shipment, they witnessed fall in terms of smartphone shipments. They now command 23.2 percent market share compared to 24.5 percent in previous quarter.
On the other hand, Micromax further increased their market share from 16.7 percent to 17.7% percent. Homegrown Smartphone brand Intex made handsome gains in market share in third quarter. Intex increased from 9.9 percent to 11.7 percent, whereas Lenovo went from 7.5 percent in 2Q 2015 to 9.8 in 3Q 2015.
Interestingly, for the first time Xiaomi market share declined sequentially in India since its debut. The report stated that their smartphone shipments declined by almost 46% due to fierce competition from Lenovo and Micromax’s Yu brands especially in the higher volume sub-$100 segment.
For the first time, Lava (excluding Xolo) surpassed Microsoft and thereby capturing fourth spot in the overall handset market. Lava managed to increase its smartphone market share to 7% level with healthy demand for Lava IRIS series, especially the ATOM 2 and X1 selfie smartphone were among the bestselling models.
Among other brands, Lenovo made healthy gains in market share thanks to their Lenovo K3 Note Smartphone. The K3 Note was the best-selling smartphone in India during Q3 2015.
Apple’s market share in India remained at 1% percent, however in terms of revenue share they now have almost 9% share depicting the prowess of Apple’s brand equity and premiumness.
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