Half of India's new smartphones are locally manufactured: IDC

Every second smartphone shipped in the quarter ended December 31, 2015 was locally manufactured in India, research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said.

"Almost one in two smartphones shipped in Q4 were locally manufactured in India and we expect this to increase further as more vendors are likely to join this bandwagon to benefit from subsidies and be more price competitive", said Jaipal Singh , market analyst, client devices.

Among the locally manufactured handsets, Samsung accounted for the largest share of shipments at 26.8 per cent. The company's J-series of smartphones contributed the most, over two thirds, to its volume growth.

Samsung was followed by Micromax (14.1 per cent) and Lenovo (11.4 per cent) in the pecking order.

According to Kiranjeet Kaur, research manager- Asia/Pacific mobile phones, local manufacturing would see further traction in 2016 as more vendors seek to benefit from lower import duties and tax structures on semi-knocked down (SKD) units.

"This year could also be the beginning of CKD manufacturing in India taking local manufacturing to the next level", adds Kiranjeet.

In the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2015, 25.6 million smartphones were shipped in India, up 15.4 per from the year-ago period.

Sequentially, shipments declined 11.9 per cent due to sluggish demand recorded by home-grown handset makers.

Also, India shipped more 4G smartphones than 3G devices for the first time in Q4.

Shipment of 4G phones rose to 13.9 million units, accounting for about half the smartphones sold in India. Samsung and Lenovo phones accounted for over half of the 4G phones sold, IDC said.

Overall smartphone shipments crossed the 100 million mark for the first time in calendar 2015.