Festive online sales to add around 6 Mn new 4G smartphone users in India

This festive season is likely to bring significant changes in the smartphone market in India. While the Indian economy has been struck with a phase of stagnant demand, the frenzy around festive season sales is likely to drive sales of smartphones across the country. 

As per a report published by tech research firm techARC, Indian consumers will splurge on smartphones this festive season, with estimated sales of around 39 million units. 

Most of these sales will be made online with as much as 21 million units likely to be sold on e-commerce platforms during the festive period of October- December. 

techARC estimates that around 10 million smartphones are likely to be sold during the festive online sales such as Amazon’s Great Indian Festival sales and Flipkart’s The Big Billion Days. Both e-commerce firms have claimed record sales figures after the first day of their respective sales. 

As per the report, there would be additions of as much as 6 million new users to the 4G userbase in India as buyers would be moving from 2G/3G smartphones and feature phones to 4G handsets. The installed base of 4G Smartphone handsets will go up by 1.3 %, totalling at 72.9%. 

During the sales, online retailers stand to gain the most from sales in tier II and tier III geographic regions where smartphone penetration is quite low as compared to metro cities. Amazon claimed that 66% of prime shoppers came from smaller towns while the number of customers from tier II and tier III towns doubled for Flipkart.

The report highlights that 4G smartphone in states like West Bengal, Assam and Odisha have a higher potential of sales as the current installed base of non-4G smartphones is still above 30%.

There is wide availability of 4G smartphones across varied price segments like options from Nokia, and Redmi priced as low as Rs 5,000 to premium offerings from Apple and Samsung crossing Rs 1 lakh. There is a smartphone priced for almost everyone. 

With attractive discounts and offers during the festive season, there will be a surge in up-gradation and replacement by existing 4G smartphone users.