At over 300 mn, India to buy record number of mobile phones in 2019: Study

Backed by robust growth in smartphone as well as smart-feature phone categories, an estimated 302 million mobile handsets will be sold in India in 2019, the highest ever in a year, says a report on Tuesday.

Xiaomi is expected to continue the lead in 2019 in the overall smartphone market, according to the research from technology research consulting firm techARC.

Of the 302 million mobile handsets, 149 million (49.3 per cent) will be smartphones, 55 million (18.2 per cent) will be smart-feature phones and the remaining 98 million (32.5 per cent) will be the feature phones, the results showed.

"There is a large replacement cycle due in 2019 for users who bought their first 4G smartphone between 2015-2017," Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Principal Analyst, techARC said in a statement.

Some of the prominent brands that are expected to witness growth in their sales next year compared to 2018 include Xiaomi, OnePlus, Google, Nokia, Asus and Realme, the report said.

None of the homegrown brands is expected to show reversal of declining trends that continued all through 2018, while sales for Samsung, Oppo, Vivo and Honor-Huawei are expected to remain flat and continue to show similar market performance as in 2018, it added.

techARC said the sales estimates are based on its internal projections, validated through interactions across the value chain including users, channel, original equipment manufacturers (OEMS) and component suppliers.