Indian smartphone market grew 5.2% in 2016: IDC

India registered 109.1 million units of smartphone shipments with a marginal 5.2% annual growth in 2016, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Monday. Chinese players led the pack.

In the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016, smartphone shipments clocked 25.8 million units -- registering similar volumes as that of 2015 but declining sharply by 20.3% over the previous quarter. 

This was mainly due to a seasonal decline after an all-time high festival quarter and demonetisation in November, which led to relatively lower consumer sales in November and December.

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"Feature phone to smartphone migration has slowed down as prices of smartphones are still quite high for a feature phone user," said Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC.

The share of China-based vendors touched a whopping 46% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016. Their shipments doubled over the same period last year while the share of homegrown vendors slipped to 19%. 

Samsung continued to lead the smartphone market with 25.1% share despite a 13.1% sequential decline in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016. But Samsung`s annual shipments grew 3.2% in 2016, driven majorly by the J-series. 

Xiaomi climbed up to second spot with 10.7% share against 3.3% share in the same period last year. Year-on-year shipments grew threefold while sequential growth was 15.3%. 

Lenovo (including Motorola) slipped to third place as shipments declined 17.4% sequentially in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016 and 14.5% over same quarter of previous year, the report noted. 

OPPO made it to the top five list with 8.6% share. 

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