Over 500 million Indians now use smartphones pl62 77 percent of who are online: techARC

Report claims Indian s prefer to start their smartphone journey with the basic segment – Rs. 5,001 to Rs. 10,000. 4k69

By Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: 30 January 2020 17:47 IST

Over 500 million Indians now use smartphones, 77 percent of who are online: techARC

Highlights

There has been a 15 percent increase in number of smartphones from 2018
India had 502.2 million smartphone s as of December 2019
Samsung led the smartphone installed base in the calendar year 2019

ment

Over 500 million Indians are now using smartphones, a 15 percent increase from 2018 primarily due to brands like Xiaomi and Realme that continue to bring new s to the ecosystem, a new report said on Thursday. According to market research firm techARC, India had 502.2 million smartphone s as of December 2019, which means over 77 percent of Indians are now accessing wireless broadband through smartphones. 35q5r

Oppo at 9 percent, respectively.

"After a slow migration rate from feature phones to smartphones for a couple of years, it's good to see that the market has started to expand again," Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst, techARC said in a statement.

Although the market does have options in the entry segment (sub-Rs. 5,000) for smartphones, s prefer to start their smartphone journey with the basic segment (Rs. 5,001 to Rs. 10,000).

OnePlus led smartphone brands in of percentage net addition to the base in 2019.

Realme increased its base by 49 percent, Vivo 44 percent and OnePlus by 41 per cent.

Other major brands including Samsung, Xiaomi, and Oppo added 9 percent, 25 percent and 36 percent, respectively to their base in 2019.

"Factors like availability of good-quality affordable smartphones, expansion of online as well as offline channels, expansion of 4G/LTE networks by the operators are among the key reasons driving the smartphone growth," said Kawoosa.

However, it's going to be challenging hereon as the market is saturating in of addressable market, he added.

The next goal for smartphone brands should be to ramp up services where they could consistently generate revenue from the existing customers.

At present, smartphone brands are able to generate $0.5-$1.5 a month from s depending on what all the services they offer, including advertising.

"Even if a brand is able to generate $1 revenue per per month, with a base of 50 million s to be there for an average of 3 years, this means a revenue potential of $1.8 billion from services alone," the findings showed.

The other strategy is to offer accessories and other connected electronic devices like smart TVs and smart speakers.

Vivo, Oppo and Realme will be the three main gainers for 2020 in of additions to the net base, forecast the techINSIGHT report.

"Realme could enter in top five brands by installed base displacing Lenovo MBG (Lenovo + Motorola) brands. Xiaomi will continue to exhibit growth in base while Samsung could start showing off decline in its base or grow with a low percentile," the report added.

OnePlus 8 leaks look exciting but when will the phones launch in India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, the episode, or just hit the play button below.

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