In the calendar year, 2016 (CY 2016), Lenovo Mobile Group (comprising of Lenovo and Moto smartphones) has emerged as the #2 smartphone brand concerning volume and value, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) India Q4 2016 Smartphone Market Report.
While Lenovo captured 8.9% market share in terms of volume, it had 9.8% market share in terms of value. The company also maintained its leadership position in e-commerce space in 2016. Overall, the Group has reported 14.8% year-on-year growth.
Commenting on the achievement, Sudhin Mathur, Executive Director, Lenovo Mobile Business Group India said, “In just four years of operation in India, Lenovo MBG has been able to create a place amongst the top 2 players in this competitive market. We have emerged as the number one challenger brand in the Indian smartphone market, owing to our customer centric approach and the drive towards real innovation, ensuring that needs across the market segments are catered to.”
Lenovo had many mid-range and premium segment smartphone launches in 2016. The company plans to continue to offer the same in the year 2017, ensuring the price range to be affordable, according to Lenovo.
Smartphone Market in India in 2016
Meanwhile, India registered 109.1 million units of smartphone shipments in CY 2016, marking a marginal 5.2% annual growth in the year. In Q4 2016, smartphone shipments stood 25.8 million units, a 20.3% decline when compared to the previous quarter. The demonetization happened in the month of November is pointed out as a reason for this decline.
“Feature phone to smartphone migration has slowed down as prices of smartphones are still quite high for a feature phone user. Also, ease of use, long battery life, and durability of feature phones continue to be relevant for large numbers of users of this category,” Karthik J., Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC said.
However, feature phones are still the dominant category in the total mobile phone market. They reported annual shipments of 136.1 million units.
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The shipments of China-based smartphones has doubled over the same period last year. Their share constituted 46% in CY Q42016 in the market. The online sales in the smartphone market remained at 31.2% in CY Q4 2016. Besides Lenovo, Xiaomi too accounted a major position on online space. Both together accounted for more than half of the volume.
