India mobile phone sales (unit shipments) touch nearly 166 million units in the first 11 months of calendar 2011; shipments in November flat on account of post-festive season cyclical effect
Multi-SIM handsets account for over 54% of total shipments in November 2011; Nokia emerges leader
Smartphone shipments in India crossed 10 million units for the first time in 11 months of ended November 2011, account for over 6% of total market
Increased installed base of smartphones and greater operator focus on arresting declining ARPUs set stage for rise in share of revenues from data services in 2012 and beyond
Chennai, January 24, 2012: The overall India mobile handsets market recorded sales of 15.4 million units during November 2011. This was reported in the India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for November 2011 released today by premier IT, Telecoms, Semiconductor & Electronics, Government, Entrepreneurship, Energy & Healthcare and User research firm CyberMedia Research. Total mobile handset shipments during the first eleven months of calendar year 2011 touched nearly 166 million units.
In the overall India mobile handsets market, Nokia retained leadership position with 28% share, followed by Samsung at second position with 12% and Micromax at third position with 4%, in terms of sales (unit shipments) during the month of November 2011.
Multi-SIM Mobile Handsets
Multi-SIM mobile handset shipments accounted for 54% of the total India mobile handsets market during November 2011 in the country.
Nokia, a late entrant to the Multi-SIM device category, made up by having as many as seven models on offer by November 2011 and is the market leader in the category with 19% market share, followed by Micromax with 7.1% and Karbonn with 6.9% market share.
| Table 1. India Monthly Mobile Handset Shipments (millions of units), Number of Models Launched by Device Type: November 2011* |
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*Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for
November 2011 |
Growth of Smartphones
Smartphone shipments touched 10 million units in first eleven months of calendar year 2011. November 2011 was only the third consecutive month when smartphone shipments in India crossed 1 million units. Moreover, the month witnessed the launch of as many as 23 smartphone models.
“A new trend that is becoming visible is the launch of dual SIM smartphones by vendors”, stated Tarun Pathak, Analyst, Monthly Mobile Phones Market Review Program, CyberMedia Research Telecoms Practice.
At the fag end of the month Nokia launched its Lumia range of devices (Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710) based on the new Microsoft Windows 7.5 Mango operating system. It remains to be seen how these devices fare in terms of shipments in the next few months.
| Table 2. India Mobile Handsets Market: Shares of leading Vendors in Smartphones during November 2011* |
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| * Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for November 2011 |
3G Phones
Total 3G phone shipments touched 15.5 million in the first eleven months of CY 2011, with close to 224 models launched by 26 vendors. In November 2011, 3G phone shipments contributed 8.9% of the total mobile device shipments in the country.
"With increasing share of 3G phones in the market, the stage is set for customers to experience the benefits of 3G services. However, currently, the user experience on 3G networks has been constrained due to network quality issues faced by subscribers,” stated Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, CyberMedia Research Telecoms Practice.
| Stage Set for Increase in Data Services Revenues in 2012 and beyond |
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| * Source: CyberMedia Research India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for November 2011 |
“As the device side of the data services ecosystem, signified by the growth in shipments of smartphones and 3G-enabled handsets reaches a critical mass, Telcos in India would do well to shore up their networks and put in place suitable alliances with publishing companies and content developers”, stated Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, CyberMedia Research Telecoms Practice.
“In the past few years, cricket, gaming and Bollywood movie-clip and music downloads have ruled the roost in terms of availability of online and mobile content in India. Going forward, it is very important for the three-part ecosystem of device vendors, content companies and telecom service providers to invest in creating attractive and relevant content packages for the growing segment of 3G device and smartphone users. The industry also needs to focus on improving the overall user experience by making lighter, faster applications. These measures are expected help grow data consumption in the country and lead to improvement in Telco ARPUs”,
| Stage Set for Increase in Data Services Revenues in 2012 and beyond |
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| Source: TRAI, January 2012 |
Notes for Editors
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CyberMedia Research, India uses the term “shipments” to describe the number of handsets leaving the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For the convenience of media, the term shipments has been replaced by 'sales' in the press release, but this reflects the market size in terms of units of mobile handsets and not their absolute value. In the case of handsets imported into the country it represents the number leaving the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers. CyberMedia Research does not track the number of handsets brought on their person by individual passengers landing on Indian soil from overseas destinations or ‘grey market’ handsets. These are, therefore, not part of the CyberMedia Research numbers reported here.
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CyberMedia Research, India tracks shipments of mobile handsets on a monthly basis. However, as per convention, the market size may be reported on a calendar quarter basis where appropriate to the context; in all such cases this refers to an aggregated number for the three calendar months in the quarter to which the press release refers.
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