Smartphone sales in India to reach 160 million units in FY 2016-17: Report

Mumbai: Sale of smartphones in the country is likely to touch 160 million units in financial year 2016-17 as compared to last fiscal's 100 million units, according to Assocham.

Due to affordable prices of the smartphones, the sales have been increasing in the country, the industry body report said adding, in 2012-13 it was 44 million units and by 2015-16 it had more than doubled to 100 million units.

"With in-built camera and other Internet-enabled features, sales of smart phones in India are set to shoot up to 160 million in FY17 from 100 million in FY16," the Assocham study said.

It observed that more customers prefer to buy smart phones as the in-built camera helps to capture photos and videos, which can be shared instantly with their friends.

"There has been a rise in the demand of smart phones in India in the last one year and it is largely due to the increase in social networking sites.

Most of the youth in the country share photographs online and upload photographs which has become a new trend in the metros thus giving rise to the need for smart phones," it added.

The rise of smart phones is eating into the demand for the digital camera which witnessed a drop in sales by over 35 per cent per cent in the last one year.

"Affordable smartphones includes handsets in the price of Rs 4,000-10,000 and this segment accounts for 78 per cent of all smartphone sales equipped with almost similar features which one may get in these sub-Rs 10,000 cameras, and thus need for digital cameras has almost vanished," it said.

About 93 per cent of the customers prefer smartphones. The device is becoming the main camera choice by a large number of people who rely on their smart phones instead of compact digital cameras for both still photos and video capture, the study said.

Almost 75 per cent of the sales of mobiles and tablets came from consumers' residing in tier-I and tier II cities.

With the a faster rate of adoption of smartphone and tablet, the number of users accessing the Internet through PCs is falling, it said.