The shipment of smartphones in India was up 15.4% to 25.6 million units in Q4FY15, from 22.2 million units for the same period last year, according to an IDC report. However, shipments declined on a sequential basis by 11.9% over the previous quarter. Overall, for the full calendar year 2015, smartphone shipments grew by 28.8% to 103.6 million units, accounting for 40% of the mobile phone market. Note 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 the findings. Rise in 4G smartphone shipments: Q4FY2015 saw a rise in 4G phone shipments to 13.9 million units, accounting for over half the smartphones sold. Samsung and Lenovo phones accounted for over half of the 4G phones sold. Online shipments: The report mentions that online share of sales was 37.3% for the quarter, with nearly half of the shipments coming from online exclusive model. Interestingly, the report mentions that almost 1 in 2 smartphones shipped in the quarter were locally manufactured in India. Samsung and Micromax continue to dominate: Samsung’s market share in Q4FY15 stood at 26.8% followed by Micromax at 14.1%. Micromax seems to be losing…
