India’s smartphone market expanded 84 per cent in Q2 from the same period a year ago as Samsung continued to lose market share to local rivals.

With smartphones accounting for just 29 per cent of overall phone shipments in India, the segment has huge upside potential. Over the last year, feature phone share of the market has dropped to 71 per cent from 84 per cent, and the decline is expected to pick up as more low-price models flood the market.

idc india

More than 80 per cent of the smartphones sold were priced below $200. A year ago, 67 per cent were sub-$200 models.

The overall phone segment in the country increased 5 per cent to 63.2 million units from the previous quarter.

Kiran Kumar, IDC India research manager for client devices, said the smartphone market is expected to more than double between now and 2018. With the entry of Mozilla and Android One operating systems, he said the sub-$200 segment is expected to become more appealing.

According to IDC, smartphone shipments increased to 18.42 million units in Q2 compared to 10 million in the same period of 2013. Worldwide shipments surpassed 300 million for the first time, after increasing 25 per cent during the quarter. India now represents 6 per cent of the global smartphone market.

Samsung held on to the top local spot with a 29 per cent share of smartphone sales, despite dropping from 35 per cent in Q1, as local vendors gained ground. Micromax remained second with an 18 per cent share (up from 15 per cent in Q1), Karbonn was third with 8 per cent, followed by Lava (6 per cent) and Motorola (5 per cent).

Samsung also continued to lead in the overall phone category (feature phone and smartphone), with a 17 per cent share (down from 20 per cent the previous quarter), but is trailed closely by Micromax (14 per cent) and Nokia (10 per cent).

IDC VP & GM for South Asia, Jaideep Meht, said: “Samsung needs to address the low-end of the market more aggressively and also needs a blockbuster product at the high end to regain momentum. Given the current growth rates, there is a real possibility of seeing vendor positions change this year.”

The phablet segment in India grew 20 per cent during the quarter but only accounted for 5.4 per cent of the overall smartphone segment. IDC noted that more than half of phablet shipments were priced below $250, with Indian vendors dominating that segment.