The smartphone shipments in India has grown by 229% year over year (YoY) to 12.8 million smartphones for the third quarter of 2013, up from 3.8 million smartphones in the same quarter last year, according to a report by IDC. The shipments grew by close to 28% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). Its worth noting that IDC calculates sales of mobile handsets by tracking the number of handsets that leave the factory premises for OEM sales or stocking by distributors and retailers. For imported handsets it’s the number of handsets that leaves the first warehouse to OEMs, distributors and retailers. It does not account for handsets brought in by individuals into the country or the grey market and MediaNama is not in a position to verify the accuracy of these findings. However, this does tie-in with Cybermedia Research's report from last month which had reported a total 11.1 million smartphone shipments for the period July-September 2013. Phablet (smartphones between 5-inch to 6.99-inch screen size) shipments now contribute for 23% of the smartphone shipments in Q3 2013, which is down from 30% in the previous quarter but saw a growth YoY. Feature phone shipments declining but still accounts for 81%: The overall mobile phone market which includes both feature phones and smartphones grew by 12% YoY and 7% QoQ. The feature phone market share continues to decline in the country and now accounts for 81% of the mobile phone market, down from 85% in the previous quarter. This is despite a 3% quarterly growth in the feature phone shipments. Samsung seems to…
