Almost every month, we see about a dozen or more smartphones being launched in the Indian market. Infact, India is among very few countries where very cheap smartphones are available. Recently, Ringing Bell got recognised worldover for announcing world’s cheapest Android phone for just Rs 251. But still a research report claims that India is at the bottom of the list when it comes to smartphone ownership.
As per the research report of PEW, only 17 percent Indians claim to own a smartphone while in South Korea has highest smartphone ownership – 88 per cent. The global average, as per the research, is 43 per cent. And India is in the bottom along with many Asian and African countries while the smartphone ownership is much higher in Europe and US. In China, which is the hub of smartphone manufacturing, only 58 per cent adults claims to own a smartphone.
Market research and consulting services firm CyberMedia Research (CMR) last month said that it is expecting about 250 million mobile phone units to be shipped to India. It futher added that smartphones will be the growth engine for the market while sales of feature phones will decline with each year.
The low smartphone ownership percentage was expected though as India has a much bigger population than the western countries.