Feature phones drive mobile shipments up 25% q-o-q in Q3: CMR

Mobile phone shipments in the country increased 24.7 per cent to 70.54 million units in the July-September 2015 quarter from the previous quarter, driven by strong uptake of feature phones.
Against a 10.7 per cent per cent growth in smartphone shipments (to 27.01 million) in the said quarter over April-June 2015 quarter, feature phones registered a 35.3 per cent jump (to 43.53 million units), CMR said in a statement.
"While the general belief at the moment is that smartphone is the growth catalyst for the India mobile handsets market, the results announced today reveal a contrarian view," CMR Lead Analyst Telecom Practice Faisal Kawoosa said.

He added that feature phones segment recorded over 35 per cent growth over the previous quarter, bettering the smartphones growth of 11 per cent, after a long spell of negative growth.
The growth in feature phone sales was led by strong increase in sales by Intex (94 per cent), Lava (69 per cent) and Zen (54 per cent).
On annual basis, smartphone shipments grew 15.5 per cent, while feature phone shipment fell 10.5 per cent, taking the total shipment lower by 2.1 per cent year-on-year.

One in every three smartphones sold in the July-September 2015 quarter was a 4G handset with shipments jumping over 74 per cent compared to the previous quarter, CMR said.

Samsung, Micromax and Intex were the top three players in both the categories.
In the smartphone category, Samsung led the chart with 24.4 per cent share, followed by Micromax at 17.4 per cent and Intex at 10.5 per cent.
For feature phones, Samsung had 19.2 per cent share, Micromax 12.2 per cent and Intex 11.8 per cent.