LTE or 4G services are still restricted to only few telecom circles in India but Indians seems to be favouring 4G enabled devices more than 3G smartphones, atleast new data from IDC suggests so. As per International Data Corporation’s (IDC) India monthly smartphone tracker, 4G enabled smartphone shipments overtakes 3G based devices for the first time in October 2015.
Kiran Kumar, research manager, client devices, IDC India said, “With 25.9 percent month-on-month growth, 4G based smartphone accounted for more than half of smartphones shipped in October. This gain is mainly at the expense of 3G enabled handsets as vendors are replacing their existing models with 4G based smartphones while making consumers future proof.â€
The research firm further added that in November a similar shipment figure is expected. “Traction of 4G based smartphones will only grow further as Reliance Jio’s 4G based phones are expected to hit the market by end of CY 2015,†added IDC in a press release.
However, the overall smartphone shipment has decreased to 9.3 million in the month of October 2015, compared to 10 million units in the previous month. “This decline could be attributed to incremental supplies witnessed during last weeks of September as the channels prepared for October’s festive demand and online mega sales from major ecommerce players,†IDC said.
“Shipments of Top 3 Chinese vendors namely Lenovo Group, Xiaomi and Vivo together grew at a healthy 18 percent month-over-month in October. Lenovo Group is one of the key driver for this growth with considerable volume of shipments coming from their new line up of smartphones like A1000, Vibe P1, A6010, etc. On the other hand, in October, more than half of Xiaomi’s smartphones shipped in India were locally manufactured and with Redmi Note Prime too joining local production line up, this share is only expected to go up,†IDC further said.