India’s LTE handsets base crosses 150 Million units in Q2, Xiaomi tops in under Rs.10000 category


india counterpoint

India’s LTE installed base of handsets crossed 150 million units and is only behind China and USA now and is estimated to surpass the USA in next one year, according to a latest report from Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service. Xiaomi toppled Samsung in the best-seller slot for smartphone models in the under Rs 10,000 segment in the second quarter of 2017.

Redmi Note 4 became the top-selling model in the first half of 2017. This is the first time any brand has been able to topple Samsung which has held the best-seller slot for its models over the last four years. Next 150 Million users are estimated to take half the time as VoLTE feature phones will be bringing LTE to lower price points. For Q2 2017, smartphone shipments grew a modest 4% YoY thanks to GST and strong demand for feature phones. Four out of five mobile handsets shipped were ‘Made in India’ during April-June 2017.

Performance of Chinese brands like Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo remained strong and is now contributing to more than half of the total smartphone shipments. LTE capable smartphones contributed to 96% of smartphone shipments in Q2 2017. However, in terms of installed base almost half of the smartphones are still only 3G or 2G capable. Mid end segment (₹15,000-₹20,000 or US$235-$310) remains the fastest growing segment in second successive quarter thereby increasing the average selling price of overall smartphone market by 16% YoY. Oppo, vivo and Samsung were the leading smartphone brands in this segment.

Shobhit Srivastava, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research further added,

While GST remained the key talking points during the quarter as the growing domestic EMS (Electronics manufacturing services) players were also worried about the impact of GST on local manufacturing as all previous incentives were supposed to subside under new regime. This was later addressed with the implementation of 10% Basic Customs duty on imported mobile phones and certain components by the government. Although, shipments were impacted in anticipation of GST roll-out especially in June, retailers were quite hesitant in adding new stock into the channels during the last month even though there was some assurance from the OEMs to support pre-GST channel inventory clearance. Going forward, we estimate the market to jump back to double digit growth ahead of a festive season in 2H 2017.


Author: Sneha Bokil

Sneha Bokil is a tech enthusiast and is currently using OnePlus 3T but she still treasures her Nokia N70 (M). You can follow her on Twitter @snehabokil and on Google+