India smartphone sales reach 32.3m in Q3

India’s smartphone market crossed the 30 million unit shipments milestone for the first time in the third quarter, research firm IDC said.

IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that the 32.3 million units sold during the quarter represent 17.5% growth over the previous quarter.

Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India, attributes the growth to the channel preparation for the festive season, mega online sales and early import of smartphones owing to Chinese holidays in October.

Online smartphone shipments increased to 31.6% with impressive 35% Quarter-on-Quarter (QoQ) growth due to a strong performance by key online players primarily from China-based vendors.

IDC noted that the Lenovo Group, which accounts for almost one-fourth of total online smartphone shipments, continues to lead online channel followed by Xiaomi.

Karthik said Lenovo’ sales were primarily driven by its K5 series and Motorola’s G4 series models. Meanwhile, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 3 and newly launched Redmi 3S also fuelled the online shipments to a large extent.

In addition, 4G smartphone shipments grew 24.8% over the previous quarter. IDC noted that 7 out of 10 smartphones shipped in Q3 were 4G enabled and 9 out of 10 smartphones sold by online retailers were 4G.

Overall, despite the recall of Samsung’s flagship Note 7, the Korean handset manufacturer leads the Indian smartphone market with a 23% share, recording 8% sequential growth and 9.7% growth from the same period last year.

The Lenovo Group (including Motorola) climbed to second place with 9.6% share of smartphones. Motorola’s volume almost doubled Quarter-on-Quarter driven by newly launched E3 Power and G4 models. K5 series continues to be lead runner for Lenovo accounting for over 40% of its total volume.

Meanwhile, Xiaomi makes its debut in top 5 as its shipments doubled over the previous quarter. With the primary focus on online and minimalistic product portfolio, the company has grown more than 2.5 times over the same period last year.

IDC expects 2016 to end with a higher single-digit annual growth, considering the smartphone performance in Q3.

“The entry of the new vendors have extended the feature phone supply since past few quarters. However, with expected entry of Jio in the feature phone market, a category is expected to grow significantly. This, in turn, might further slow down the feature phone to smartphone migration,” commented Navkendar Singh, senior research manager, IDC India.