Respect in India
India gets no respect in the smartphone market, despite having the largest population on a per country basis. In fact India, counting both smartphone and feature phone shipments (domestic only) ships more units than Europe and any other country other than China, although the value of those shipments falls behind the US, Europe, and China. That said, the feature phone market in India is dwindling and currently represents ~21.6% of units shipped, but only 4.3% of sales value, and is expected to continue to decline as smartphone offerings at the low-end continue to increase.
There has been a recovery of sorts in the global smartphone market this year and India has participated. As of 3Q, India’s domestic smartphone shipments have increased by 5.7% y/y on a cumulative basis and have surpassed quarterly 5-year average shipment levels in both 2Q and 3Q. While we expect 4Q to be a bit more difficult (typically ↓12.4% q/q), if shipment levels just meet the 5-year average (39.54 million smartphone units), the year will still be up ~2.0% y/y after a very strong 2024 (↑9.5% in units) and continuing the upward trend that began in 2023.
There has been a recovery of sorts in the global smartphone market this year and India has participated. As of 3Q, India’s domestic smartphone shipments have increased by 5.7% y/y on a cumulative basis and have surpassed quarterly 5-year average shipment levels in both 2Q and 3Q. While we expect 4Q to be a bit more difficult (typically ↓12.4% q/q), if shipment levels just meet the 5-year average (39.54 million smartphone units), the year will still be up ~2.0% y/y after a very strong 2024 (↑9.5% in units) and continuing the upward trend that began in 2023.
While India is a topic of conversation in the smartphone space because it is rapidly becoming a smartphone assembly hub, replacing China during turbulence surrounding trade and tariffs, as a consuming nation India exceeds the US in unit volume and will likely exceed the US in smartphone sales volume over the next two years. The Indian population has some of the same characteristics as China in that there is a portion of the population that is quite rural and is poorly penetrated by smartphone brands, but over time brands will find their way into that rural population, as they has been doing in China. Perhaps the India government will offer subsidies to stimulate smartphone growth, although there is less of a competitive mindset relative to the Chinese smartphone market, or will develop and promote a chain of shopping holidays as did China, but with an expanding population and one that is moving up the productivity ladder, we expect India will get more respect as it grows it smartphone business and challenges China for supremacy in the mobile space.
Figure 2 - India - Feature Phone Unit Volume - Source: SCMR LLC, CMR India, Statista
Figure 3 - Aggregate Smartphone Shipments - India - Source: SCMR-LLC, various
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