Indians picking low-cost smartphones over feature phones: IDC

The increasing number of budget smartphones   – owing to Indian phone makers joining the fray – has led to people opting to buy smartphones over feature phones in India. According to the latest IDC report, smartphone sales in India have grown over three-fold with 12.8 million units in third quarter of 2013 compared to the same time last year.

IDC India Research Manager Kiran Kumar said that the change agent for this rapid shift of consumer preference towards smartphones has been the narrowing price gap between feature phones and smartphones. According to the report, 53.9 million feature phone units were sold in third quarter of 2013 compared to 55.7 million in the third quarter of 2012. Though the numbers show about 3 percent growth, the share of feature phones has slipped to 81 percent of the total market in Q3 2013.

Porting worries! (Image credit: Getty Images)

Leading the feature phone market in India, Samsung takes the top spot with 15.3 percent share. It is followed by Nokia at 14.7 percent share, Micromax at 10.1 percent and Karbonn at 9.1 percent. Other smaller players together contribute the remaining 50.8 per cent.  In the smartphone space, Samsung leads with 32.9 percent share in the third quarter of 2013 and Micromax follows in next with 17.1 percent market share. Karbonn and Nokia follow, taking the third and fourth spot with 11.2 percent and 5 percent share respectively.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Talking about the overall phone market including feature phones and smartphones, IDC has revealed 12 percent year-on-year growth and 7 percent sequential growth.