4G beats 3G in smartphone sales

Samsung, Lenovo, Apple led the race according to data published by International Data Corporation

Samsung, Lenovo and Apple were the major contributors to the 9.3 million 4G-enabled smartphone models sold in the country in October, surpassing the total sales of 3G-enabled handsets during the month, according to data published by International Data  Corporation (IDC).

Although smartphone sales declined in October to 9.3 million units from 10 million units in September due to incremental supply in the previous month, sales of 4G phones topped the chart.

“With 25.9 per cent month-on-month growth, 4G based smartphone accounted for more than half of smartphones shipped in October. This gain is mainly at the expense of 3G-enabled handsets as vendors are replacing their existing models with 4G smartphones,” said Kiran Kumar, research manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

TOPPING THE CHARTS

• 41.2%  - Rise in online share for smartphone market in October, against 31.5% in September
   
• 9.3 million units  - Smartphone sales in October, from 10 million in September
   
• Samsung, Lenovo, Apple most sold brands in festive sales
   
• Local manufacturers such as Lenovo, Xiomi gained market share
   
• Reliance Jio launch next year to push demand for 4G smartphones

The rising sales of 4G handsets came mainly from online buyers, resulting in pushing share of online sales of handset to 41.2 per cent October, up from 33.5 per cent in September. Samsung and Lenovo were the most sold brands on online platform, IDC noted in its report.

Smartphone sale could display similar trends in November, and it will continue to rise once Reliance Jio starts its 4G services, it added in the report. Jio will launch 4G services only for its employees on December 27 and will gradually launch for customers in 2016.

During October, some of the best sold models trending the online demand were Samsung’s On5 and On7, Lenovo’s Vibe P1, Oneplus 2, Apple’s iphone 6s.

Among Chinese vendors, Lenovo, Xiomi and Vivo witnessed a healthy month-on-month growth of 18 per cent. This is was primarily due to domestic production of the phones, said IDC.

“In October, more than half of Xiaomi’s smartphones shipped in India were locally manufactured and with Redmi Note Prime too joining local production line up, this share is only expected to go up,” Kumar said in the smartphone sales report.

Lenovo has a smartphone production unit in South India and has plans to double output to 10 million units a year. Vivo has announced its plans to set up a smartphone manufacturing unit in north India.