Smartphones escape slowdown blues, cars, cookies don’t

The growth in smartphone adoption was further fuelled by the government’s push to position the country as a global hub for manufacturing and coax Apple and other leading brands to produce and export more phones from India.

Experts say phone shipment is expected to see high single-digit to double-digit growth in India as smartphones aiding everything from shopping to banking to social media and, yes, perfect selfies!

Counterpoint Research Associate Director Tarun Pathak expects India’s smartphone market to grow by 9 pc this year, and in double digits (by 12-14 pc) in 2020.

By 2022, over 700 million people are expected to have a smartphone in India, and over a billion devices will be sold over the next four-five years, he said.

A back of the envelope calculation shows that over 115 million units smartphones were shipped in India in the first three quarters of 2019 with Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Oppo and realme making up the top five tally. Interestingly, there has been a significant rise in the average selling prices (ASP) of smartphones this year - rising from Rs 5,000-10,000 to Rs 10,000-15,000 now. As per International Data Corporation (IDC), while more than 80 pc of the market is sub-$200, the $300-500 category has witnessed multi-fold growth with flagship devices of players like Xiaomi, Oppo and OnePlus.

According to IDC India Associate Research Manager (Client Devices) Upasana Joshi, this segment is essentially for the “upgraders” who aspire for flagship-like design and specifications at nominal prices. The Centre on its part brought a new electronics manufacturing policy to woo global investors to target manufacturing of one billion mobile phones by 2025. It also relaxed FDI for single brand retail - a move that made Apple announce willingness to open its maiden retail store in India. Also, corporate tax rate was reduced to 22 pc and a lower 15 pc rate offered to new manufacturing units.

This massive outreach helped as Apple began making iPhone XR in India, while Salcomp committed investments to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore. Salcomp - which the world’s largest manufacturer and a major supplier of chargers to Apple for iPhone - has inked an agreement to take over the facility of Nokia in a special economic zone (SEZ) near Chennai that was closed for nearly 10 years. The facility will be made operational from March 2020, and is expected to employ about 10,000 people.