NEW DELHI: Mobile phone shipments in the country increased 24.7% to 70.54 million units in the July-September 2015 quarter from the previous quarter, driven by strong uptake of feature phones.
Against a 10.7% growth in smartphone shipments (to 27.01 million) in the said quarter over April-June 2015 quarter, feature phones registered a 35.3% jump (to 43.53 million units), CMR said in a statement.
“While the general belief at the moment is that smartphone is the growth catalyst for the India mobile handsets market, the results announced today reveal a contrarian view,” CMR lead analyst telecom practice Faisal Kawoosa said. He added that feature phones segment recorded over 35% growth over the previous quarter, bettering the smartphones growth of 11%, after a long spell of negative growth.
The growth in feature phone sales was led by strong increase in sales by Intex (94%), Lava (69%) and Zen (54%). On annual basis, smartphone shipments grew 15.5%, while feature phone shipment fell 10.5%, taking the total shipment lower by 2.1% year-on-year.
One in every three smartphones sold in the July-September 2015 quarter was a 4G handset with shipments jumping over 74% compared to the previous quarter, CMR said. Samsung, Micromax and Intex were the top three players in both the categories.
In the smartphone category, Samsung led the chart with 24.4% share, followed by Micromax at 17.4% and Intex at 10.5%. For feature phones, Samsung had 19.2% share, Micromax 12.2% and Intex 11.8%.
