Business India Today Business India Story India becomes smartphone makers’ delight Mail Today Bureau | New Delhi, December 30, 2010 | Updated 08:32 IST Utilities Get social
Smartphone sales have jumped three-fold in the third quarter (July-September) of 2010 over the year-ago period and grown by 34.2 per cent over the second quarter (April-June) of this year, according to the latest IDC survey released on Thursday. This clearly underscores the trend that India mobile handset consumers have started showing higher preference for adopting smartphones.
According to the report, smartphone prices continued to drop through the year and as competition increased, devices were made available by vendors at successively lower price points. While 80 per cent of the total Indian smartphone sales were below the average sales value of Rs 18,000 in the second quarter of 2010, this proportion rose to 90 per cent in the third quarter (Q3).
“The propensity to adopt feature phones and smartphones is greatest amongst the youth and business executive segments, whose purchase decisions are driven by peer group influence and workplace usage patterns as well as larger disposable incomes and willingness to experiment with new technology,” said IDC India vice-president Anirban Banerjee.
Android gained acceptance as an operating system (OS) and 9.4 per cent of smartphones shipped in Q3 of 2010 were based on the Android OS against 2.9 per cent in Q3 of 2009. The number of models with Android OS also rose to 19 in Q3 of 2010 against only two models in Q3 of 2009. Naveen Mishra, lead analyst IDC India, said, “In the smartphone segment an increasing number of vendors are displaying confidence in the Android OS, having grown from just one vendor in Q3 of 2009 to as many as seven in Q3 of 2010.”
Finnish handset maker Nokia cornered the largest share of 31.5 per cent of the Indian mobile phone market during Q3 of 2010. The IDC report expects the year 2010 to end with total mobile handset sales of 155.9 million units.
