Smartphone shipments in India grow 167% between Jan-Apr

Smartphone shipments to India grew by 167% in January-April from the same period a year earlier, the latest report released by research firm Cyber Media Research (CMR) has stated.

According to the report, nearly 10 million Smartphones were shipped within the South Asian country during the first three months of 2013.

South Korea-based Samsung retained its top-spot in Smartphone shipments by selling some 4 million units during January-April and making up about 40% of the total market share.

The homegrown companies Micromax and Bangalore-based Karbonn, who operate within the Rs 7000 to Rs 16,000 price point, occupied the second and third places respectively at 19.3% and 8.6% market shares respectively. This was the first time in the country’s history that two major domestic Smartphone manufacturers came in among the top three positions.

Cyber Media said the skyrocketing growth rate of the Smartphone is an indication that an increasing number of mobile phone users are migrating from feature phones to the entry-level Smartphones which offer internet browsing and content downloading. The feature phones witnessed a growth rate of just 2.4% during the three month period.

Nokia retained the leadership in the overall mobile shipment in the country, making up 20.3% of the market share, while rival Samsung pursed closely behind with 14.2%, up from 5% a couple of years ago.

The total number of mobile handset shipments in India for the first four months of 2013 propelled to 4 million units, up 11% compared with the same period last year.

The Smartphone users in India have now reached 108 million (calculated based of 850 million mobile phones users in the country), the report said.

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Nokia set to release QWERTY Smartphone

Millions of Nokia fans have their pulses racing since company’s announcement that it is going to launch “something new” on Wednesday. Though the company hasn’t reveled anything further about the announcement, a teaser image has prompted many to believe that the product set to be launched is a new Smartphone with a physical, QWERTY keyboard.

Ian Delany, the Nokia’s chief editor of Conversations blog, on Sunday took twitter to proclaim that the company will be unveiling something new on Wednesday, April 24 in morning UK time. The tweet further stated that the product announcement will be followed by Q&A session with company’s Technology Marketing Director Neil Broadley and a “special guest”, whose name has been kept in anonymity.

The teaser included in the entry displaying two curved corners of a yellow-colored device with a polycarbonate shell resembling the designs of Nokia’s Lumia range of Windows Phone Smartphone. Two keys of the assumed Smartphone are visible, one is a Z key indicating that it is a QWERTY keypad and the other is the arrow key.

A flood of rumors have hit the internet since the announcement with majority suggesting that the device would be the highly-anticipated Lumia-inspired Asha phone 501. Asha 501 is a multitouch S40 phone with 3.5 inch display. It has 1 GHz processor, five mega pixel rear and VGA front facing camera.  Some other sources have suggested that the yellow device in the teaser could be Lumia 928.

Nokia, which sold over 9.3 million Asha handsets across the globe in the last quarter of 2012, is facing strong competition from Samsung that recently released its low-cost REX series in a bid to overpower the Finland-based company.  At this stage, raising the bar for its Asha devices has become indispensible for Nokia.

The launch of the Asha handset with enhanced features at a competitive price will not only enable the company to counter Samsung and revitalize its place in the feature phone segment in Asia, but will also help it to shore itself up before Mobile World Congress 2014.

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