Intex Launched Maximum Handsets In India; Asus Zenfone 2 Emerges As The Most Popular Smartphone: Report

91Mobiles, which claims to be India’s biggest gadget research portal with traffic of 80 lakh hits per month, has just released their report titled ‘Mobile phone Landscape: India H1 2015’. This report has been generated from their internal data pertaining to popularity and usage of mobile phones during the first half of 2015.

Focusing mainly on the launch of mobile phones in India, and the searches which 8 million+ tech enthusiasts conducted on their portal, this report throws some interesting data.

As per the report, Chinese mobile company’s influence in the Indian market has steeply increased, compared to last year. PM Modi’s Make in India campaign can be a reason for this, as several Chinese firms have started local manufacturing. Compared to 2014, user-engagement with Chinese brands have increased by 15%, whereas for Indian brands, it has only increased by 1%. On the same hand, the popularity of other International brands has come down from 66% to 50%.

Overall, Intex was the brand which launched maximum handsets (41) during first half of 2015, beating Micromax which launched 24 and Samsung which launched 21 handsets.

However, if we only talk about Rs 10,000+ handsets, then Samsung is the reigning champion with 15 launches, whereas HTC is at #2 with 9 and LG is at #3 with 7 handsets launch.

In terms of popularity, Asus Zenfone 2, which was launched in April, has emerged as the most searched handset on 91Mobiles’ platform. At #2 in popularity is Micromax’s YU Yureka and at #3 is Samsung Galaxy Core Prime.

Here is the list of top 10 most popular handsets:

If we focus on the range of phablets within Rs 5000 and Rs 15000, then YU Yureka is at #1, followed by Samsung Galaxy Core Prime and Lenovo K3 Note. Xiaomi’s Redmi Note is at #4 while Samsung Galaxy Core 2 is at #5.

For Phablets in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000, Samsung Galaxy A7 is the #1 choice, followed by Gionee Elfie S7and HTC Desire 826.

For those who wish to spend more than Rs 30,000, Apple iPhone 6 is the ultimate choice. Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Samsung Galaxy S6 are at #2 and #3 positions respectively.

Google Nexus 6 is at #4 and LG G4 is at #5.

But the market is being led by the Rs 5000 to Rs 10,000 segment, which saw maximum increase in user engagement. As we can see in the below chart, compared to 2014, this segment witnessed an increase of 9%, whereas Rs 30,000+ category saw a fall of 13%. This is the reason brands like Sony, HTC and Samsung have increased their offering for this category, compared to last year.

Another interesting stat which came out from the report: The number of online only launches of handsets is increasing at a faster rate than we imagined. Compared to Q4 2014, online only launches have increased by 13% during H1 of 2015. We had reported last year that 54% of products sold online are denied warranty. Last week, we had reported the tussle between Flipkart and Nikon over online sales and warranty.

You can access the complete report below, wherein you can get some more interesting data and stats related to Indian mobile phone industry.