A report by Counterpoint Research has revealed that India has dethroned the US as world’s second largest smartphone market. This research has been done in terms of active unique smartphone user base crossing 220 million. Smartphone shipments increased by 23.3 percent to reach 100 million units during the year 2015, in comparison to 81.1 million devices shipped in the preceding year, 2014.
Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Tarun Pathak said,“India has inched past the US to become the second largest smartphone market in terms of active unique smartphone user base in the world with the base crossing 220 million users. This speaks volume for the scale India market provides for any player in the mobile connected ecosystem,”
Here’s a tally about manufacturer-wise smartphones shipments in the country, in the December 2015 quarter. Samsung yet again emerged as the leader with 28.6 percent share, Micromax claimed the second spot with 14.3 percent share, Lenovo settled for the third spot with 11.4 percent share, Intex at the fourth spot with 9.6 percent share, and lastly, Lava at the fifth spot with 6.8 percent of share. 
Another tally has been done in terms of total market share including both smartphones and feature phones. Here as well, Samsung topped the chart with 23.6 percent of the total market share, Micromax with 13.7 percent share, Intex with13 percent share, Lava with 12.6 percent share, and Lenovo with 4.8 percent.
However, Pathak also revealed that India still has a long path to tread as the smartphone penetration of the total potential population is still below 30 percent. Thanks to the welcoming behaviour of the Indian users towards 4G LTE smartphones, shipments increased by 15 percent to 25.3 million units between the period from October-December 2015 quarter in comparison with 22 million units in the year 2014, as mentioned in the report.
Counterpoint Research Analyst Pavel Naiya said,“The Indian smartphone demand grew strongly during the holiday season in the Q4 2015 quarter. However, the consumer demand waned since mid-November leading to smartphone shipments decline 11 percent sequentially,”
Although, LTE shipments increased substantially, as more than one in two smartphones shipped was LTE enabled. Moreover, the quarter also witnessed major LTE services rollout in the country by various service providers in the country, which reminds us of one of the major LTE launches by Reliance Jio. With the decreasing average selling price of LTE-enabled smartphones, the report suggests that LTE services will see more adoption rate than 3G services.
In the fourth quarter, more than 40 percent of the mobile devices shipped were ’smartphones’. What’s even more welcoming is that almost half of the mobiles sold in the quarter were ‘Made in India’, thanks to 20 mobile phone manufacturers that now assembling units setup in India.
