Over 15.8 million 4G devices imported in first quarter in India

Over 15.8 million 4G/LTE devices were imported in the first quarter of 2016 in India, a report said on Friday.

Of these, 97.9% were smartphones followed by internet data cards at 1.5% and the remaining 0.6% were tablet PCs.

This amounts to 63% of the cellular devices shipped through the quarter, said the report by market research company CyberMedia Research (CMR) "Quarterly India LTE Devices" report.

"The smartphone industry was the first to bank upon the 4G wave. Now as the services go live with multiple operators, it is the time for other devices to ride on the growth path," said Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst (Telecoms) at CMR in a statement.

In the mobile phones segment, Samsung, Lenovo and Reliance Industries's LYF are the three leaders with 32%, 14% and 13% market shares, respectively.

In tablets, Samsung, Apple and iBall are the three leading brands with 58%, 16% and 12% market shares, respectively.

However, in the internet data cards segment, Huawei, ZTE and Micromax were the only three players shipping 4G devices in the first quarter and their shares stood at 40%, 31% and 29%, respectively.