According to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release, India registered 221.6 million mobile handset shipments for CY (January-December) 2012. During the same period, 15.2 million smartphones were shipped in the country.
Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “Although we see a huge market ‘hype’ around smartphones, the fact remains that the India Mobile Handsets market is still dominated by shipments of featurephones. On the other hand smartphone shipments are growing fast. This indicates India is still a ‘new phone’ market, where featurephones contribute to the bulk of shipments compared to replacements or upgrades.”
The India smartphones market during 2nd half 2012 saw a rise in shipments by 75.2% over and above the 1st half 2012 number, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 6.8% for the full year. In fact, during 2H 2012, smartphone shipments stood at 8.1% of the country’s total mobile handset shipments. While BlackBerry was at third spot during 1H 2012, Sony Mobiles displaced the former if we examine numbers for the full CY 2012.
Source: CMR India