Smartphones surge in India

Smartphone shipments in India more than tripled in the third quarter of 2013 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest industry data, suggesting the smartphone market will continue its high rate of growth.

Analysis from the International Data Corporation (IDC), the technology market intelligence provider, found 12.8m smartphones were shipped in Q3 2013 compared to 3.8m units in Q3 2012, while shipments also increased by almost 28% since the second quarter of 2013.

Smartphones now account for 19% of the overall mobile phone market compared to 7% in Q3 2012 even though the feature phone market grew by 3% in Q3 2013 over Q2 2013.

The overall mobile phone market recorded 12% year-on-year growth and quarterly growth of 7% since Q2 2013.

IDC said a narrowing price gap between feature phones and smartphones was the main driver for the rapid shift of consumer preference towards smartphones and it expected this development to continue in the near futurehttp://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/EmailNews.news?ID=32286&Origin=WARCNewsEmail&utm_source=WarcNews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WarcNews20131204