Mobile Sales to be 155 mn, Smartphones to be 6 mn in 2010: IDC India

The Chinese brand G'Five emerged as No. 2 player in terms of unit shipments market share and Korean handset manufacturer Samsung stood at No. 3 in 3Q 2010.

The India mobile handsets market continued to grow in 3Q 2010 as well to record a quarter-on-quarter (3Q 2010 over 2Q 2010) growth of 3.6%* to touch 40.08 million units in the quarter, according to IDC India. The year 2010 is expected to end with total mobile handset sales of 155.9 million units.

The number of emerging vendors in India's burgeoning mobile handsets market grew to 68 and they together garnered 41.2%* of total shipments (sales) for the first time during the July-Sep 2010 quarter. This represented a steady rise from only 5 new vendors representing a 0.9%* combined share of units shipped in the January-March 2008 quarter.

3Q 2010 saw a strong quarter-on-quarter (3Q 2010 over 2Q 2010) growth in smartphone sales by 34.2%* and a year-on-year (3Q 2010 over 3Q 2009) increase by 294.9%*. This clearly underscores the trend that India mobile handset consumers have started showing higher preference for adopting smartphones.

Smartphone prices continued to drop through the year and as competition increased, devices were made available by vendors at successively lower price points. So, while 80%* of total India smartphone sales were below the ASV (Average Sales Value) of Rs. 18,000 in 2Q 2010, this proportion increased to 90%* in 3Q 2010.

"The India mobile handsets market got even more crowded and fragmented in the lower- and mid-market segments with the further entry of new players offering innovative models at attractive price points to lure buyers", stated Anirban Banerjee, Associate Vice President, Research, IDC India.

"The propensity to adopt feature phones and smartphones is greatest amongst the youth and business executive segments, whose purchase decisions are often driven by peer group influence and workplace usage patterns, as well as larger disposable incomes and willingness experiment with new technology platforms", Banerjee further added.

Android gained acceptance as a mobile operating system (OS) and 9.4% of smartphones shipped in 3Q 2010 were based on the Android OS as compared to 2.9% in 3Q 2009. The number of models with Android OS also increased to 19 in 3Q 2010 as compared to only 2 models in 3Q 2009.

According to Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, Mobile Handsets Research, IDC India, "In the smartphone segment an increasing number of vendors are displaying confidence in the Android OS, having grown from just one vendor in 3Q 2009 to as many as seven in 3Q 2010."

"This trend is expected to show healthy growth as the Android OS-based applications ecosystem widens in terms of its reach into the developer community and number of users, both of which will further prompt device vendors to introduce new models. Overall India smartphone sales are expected to touch 5.96 million units by end of calendar 2010", Mishra further added.