India to have 14% share in global smartphone market

Country expected to have total of 180 million smartphones by 2019, according to an Assocham-KPMG report

As more people are shifting to smartphones due to rising affordability of such devices and indigenous manufacturing, India is expected to have a total number of 180 million smartphones by 2019, claiming 13.5% of total global smartphone market, a report by Assocham-KPMG has said.

India’s share in global smartphone market is currently 7.6%.

The report said India is fastest-growing market for mobile handsets and globally contributed nearly 7.6% to the global smartphone market in 2015 and is expected to touch 13.5% by 2019 with increasing popularity of smartphones, better availability of data services etc.

“Out of a total handset sale of 30 crore units in FY15, smartphones contributed 11.40 crore units i.e. 38%. This contribution is projected to grow to above 50% by 2020,” it added.

Boost in smartphone penetration is expected to cater to m-enablement of a variety of services such as mobile banking, e-commerce, mobile health, e-agriculture and services to small and medium scale businesses.

A key contributor to this growth is the decreasing price phones. The industry expects to leverage on the rural demand and assist the government in realising the digital dream.

The report said growth of Indian handset manufacturing companies has been nothing less than miraculous over the last five years.

India manufactured 11 crore mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in FY16, showing a year-on-year growth of 83% and 186%, in volume and value terms, respectively. With the ability to provide feature rich yet affordable handsets, domestic manufacturers’ share of the handset market is slated to grow further. This will be further enhanced by the increased penetration of telecom services in rural India.

The mobile handset sector is a key component in the overall telecom ecosystem and a key driver of the digital revolution in the country.

India is the second largest mobile market with over a billion subscribers at the end of Feb 2016, with 608.4 million urban subscribers and 443.5 million rural subscribers.