India mobile phone shipments reached 288 mn in 2017: IDC report

The shipments of mobile phones in India reached 288 million in 2017, thereby registering annual growth of close to 16 per cent, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said in a report released on Tuesday.

"The total shipments of feature phones were 164 million. Which leads to total mobile phone shipments to 288 million units in the calendar year 2017," IDC India senior market analyst Jaipal Singh said in a statement.

In 2016, around 109 million smartphones and 140 million feature phones were shipped to India.

Samsung led overall market with 24.7 per cent share in smartphone category and 20.5 per cent share in feature phone category for 2017.

However, it lost leadership position to Chinese smartphone firm Xiaomi in smartphone category during October- December 2017.

The Indian smartphone market grew by about 14 per cent annual growth with a total shipment of 124 million units in 2017, making it the fastest growing market amongst the top 20 smartphone markets globally, as per the IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report.

For the year 2017, Xiaomi followed Samsung with 20.9 per cent share, Vivo 9.4 per cent, Lenovo 7.8 per cent and Oppo 7.5 per cent share in smartphone segment.

Xiaomi tripled its shipments year-over-year and sold more than 2 million units from its offline channel, the report said. It led the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2017 with 26.8 per cent share.

Xiaomi was followed by Samsung with 24.2 per cent market share in smartphone category, Vivo 6.5 pe per cent, Lenovo 5.6 per cent, Oppo 4.9 per cent in the smartphone category during last quarter of 2017.

"IDC expects the Indian smartphone market to continue double-digit growth for next couple of year," Singh said.

Feature phone segment witnessed highest ever shipment at 56 million units during a quarter on account of JioPhones, the report said.

"Indian telecom operator Reliance Jio shipped huge shipments of 4G enabled feature phones taking the leadership postion on its maiden quarter in this category.This resulted in a total of 164 million feature phone shipments in 2017 from 140 million a year ago. In fourth quarter of 2017, vendors shipped a total of 56 million units...making it the highest- ever shipments in a single quarter," the report said.

JioPhone led market in the fourth quarter of 2017 with 24.1 per cent market share. It was followed by Samsung with 14.5 per cent share, iTel brand owner Transsion with 9.7 per cent, Micromax 8.7 per cent and Lava with 6.5 per cent share, as per the report.