India’s global mobile market is poised for rapid growth

Image credit: Dominik Syka

Just looking at India’s population could make one realize that there’s a big potential for every market, and the only thing one needs to do is to convince people to purchase. This is what happened to mobile, which is not very difficult to do since everybody needs it anyway.

Now, almost every Indian has a smartphone of their own, and with every mobile phone maker invading the country, the only trend experts see is an upward drift of sales as they convince the remaining smartphone-less population that they, like many others, need it as well. In a statement, GfK Director Kevin Walsh said,

India is expected to become the largest contributor of absolute smartphone unit growth globally this year.

With smartphone prices in India decreasing by a sharp 11 percent this year, it seems like there’s no stopping the Indian mobile market from growing. Add to this the 4G devices that now account for almost 6 percent of the overall smartphone unit demand, this signifies that old lower-spectrum users are now upgrading and wanting more, which translates to more sales.

The main reason, according to Walsh, is price.

India’s economy is rapidly developing and its consumers have a higher buying power that allows them to purchase almost anything they want. This is possible because smartphones are cheap in the country due to competition.

There are so many brands—both local and foreign—to the extent that the consumers are left with a vast array of choices, which, from an economist’s perspective, intensifies their buying power twofold, or maybe more.

In a report released by the International Data Corporation (IDC) Asia/ Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, there are 26.5 million smartphones shipped to India from April to June this year. A record-breaking number, it is 44 percent higher than the 18.4 million units shipped during the same period in 2014.

However, while the number of smartphones being shipped and sold in the country has skyrocketed, sales of lower-spectrum mobile phones have declined. This, nonetheless, is in no sense a cockeyed news since it just shows how mobile phone consumer predilection in the country changes: Indians now want better and stronger phones, which manufacturers—and even telcos, of course—like.

This growing market has also become a saving grace for players in the oversaturated marketplace in China, as local manufacturers here are now jumping to India to compete with emerging Indian producers and dominant Western players such as Samsung and Lenovo. Kiranjeet Kaur, Research Manager with IDC’s Asia/ Pacific Mobile Phone team, said in the report,

As China started to slow down, most vendors from the country have targeted India as the next big growth market for smartphones.