IDC: 10,000 mobile phones shipped every hour in India

BANGALORE - Close to 85 million mobile phones were shipped in India in the 12 months ending in March, compared to just under 66 million units shipped over the equivalent period a year ago, according to IDC. This was a record and amounts to a year-on-year growth of around 29 percent in terms of units.

"This growth comes on the back of a burgeoning mobile services market and lower entry barriers across various customer categories,” said Kapil Dev Singh, IDC India’s country manager. “Average selling values of handsets continue to fall in the wake of a highly competitive landscape populated by close to 25 vendors."

The period also witnessed shares of higher-level air interfaces rising. EDGE and WCDMA-enabled mobile phones contributing 15.4 per cent and 3.1 per cent of the total mobile phone shipments, compared to 7.4 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively, in 2006-07.

"As the need of Indian mobile phone consumers is evolving, they are demanding feature-rich devices, which can cater to their business communication requirements as well as their personal needs," said Naveen Mishra, IDC India’s manager of communications research.

Shipments in the first quarter of this year stood at more than 22 million handsets, which amounts to around 10,000 mobile phones being shipped every hour during the quarter. In the same quarter a year ago, just under 18 million mobile phones were shipped.

Overall, Nokia retained the top spot with a market share of 52.8 per cent, followed by LG at 10.2 per cent, and Samsung at 8.3 per cent in terms of units shipped during the quarter ended March 31.