4G smartphones outpace 3G shipments in October: IDC

NEW DELHI: 4G-enabled smartphone shipments have overtaken 3G-based devices for the first time, in October 2015, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

"With 25.9 per cent month-on-month growth, 4G based smartphone accounted for more than half of smartphones shipped in October," said Kiran Kumar, Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

"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," he added.

An array of new models including Samsung’s On5 and On7, Lenovo’s Vibe P1, Oneplus 2 and Apple’s iphone 6s, contributed to a sharp spike in 4G share of smartphones in October. They also incrementally contributed to the online volume in October 2015.

IDC added that 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.



Overall, about 9.3 million smartphones were shipped in India in the month of October 2015, coming off from a healthy September of over 10 million unit shipments.

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.

"Owing to attractive discounts and offers during online mega sales, online shipments of smartphones grew 12.1 percent in October over the previous month. This boosted the online share further from 33.5 percent in September 2015 to 41.2 percent in October 2015, primarily driven by Samsung and Lenovo,” says Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India.

Online mega sales not only encouraged vendors to increase shipments online, but also facilitated the launch of many new models to accommodate the huge end user demand during the month of October. Shipments of top three Chinese vendors namely Lenovo Group, Xiaomi and Vivo together grew at a healthy 18% 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 anticipates November to have maintained a similar shipment run-rate.