India feature phone market declines 24 percent in Q1 2020

New Delhi: The India feature phone market saw a decline of around 24 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2020, implying consumers are transitioning to smartphones, said a report.

Leading the feature phone shipment in India is itel which increased its market share from 7 percent in Q1 2019 to 22 percent in the same quarter this year, showed the data from Counterpoint Research.

Indian mobile manufacturer Lava increased its share to 15 percent in Q1 2020 from 13 percent a year ago, while Samsung`s share remained stable at 15 percent.

Nokia and Micromax rounded up the top five players in the India feature phone market.

While Nokia`s share in the market rose to 13 percent from 8 percent a year ago, the share of Micromax rose to 7 percent in Q1 2020 from just 2 percent a year ago.

Shares of the rest of the players combined declined drastically from 54 percent to 27 percent.

Overall, the Chinese brands gained tremendously in the India feature phone market, reaching a combined 33 percent share of total feature phone shipments in Q1 2020, up from 17 percent in Q1 2019.

Transsion Group brands (itel, Infinix, and Tecno) reached its highest ever market share in Q1 2020 registering 78 percent year-over-year growth.

Transsion remained strong in tier 3, tier 4 cities, and rural India, Counterpoint Research said.

"Itel continues to be the number one smartphone brand in the entry-level sub-Rs 4,000 price segment, while Tecno and Infinix showed good YoY growth in the Rs 6,000-Rs 10,000 segments by bringing attractive features in budget level smartphones. Itel also remained the #1 feature phone brand during the quarter," said the report.