Research firm IDC has reported that the Indian smartphone market declined by four per cent year on year in the quarter ended December 2014. Overall, the mobile phone imports stood at 64.3 million units in the quarter ended December 2014, reflecting a quarter-on-quarter drop of 11 per cent over quarter ended September 2014 and an annual drop of five per cent.
The decline was largely on account of a high channel inventory at the beginning of the quarter. The December 2014 quarter was seen as a ?correction phase? wherein the smartphone market declined by four per cent, while the feature phone market reduced by around 14 per cent over July-September 2014.
In the smartphone category in October-December 2014, Samsung maintained its leadership in India with 22 per cent market share, followed by Micromax (18 per cent), Intex (8 per cent) and Lava (7 per cent) while Xiaomi held 4 per cent market share. In the mobile phone segment (smartphones and feature phones), Samsung led the market with 17 per cent share followed by Micromax (15 per cent), Nokia (10 per cent), Intex (8 per cent) and Lava (8 per cent).
Going ahead, IDC projects sluggish growth in the smartphone market in January-March 2015. Further, a few global vendors that were in the inventory correction phase in the last quarter are likely to exhibit large shipments in the quarter ending March 2015.
