According to Strategy Analytics, 4G feature phones will be hugely disruptive to the already intensely competitive Indian smartphone market. Half of India smartphone owners are familiar with 4G feature phones and 1 in 3 are considering them as either a replacement for their smartphone or as an additional device.
Strategy Analytics’ mobile intelligence platform AppOptix polled the company’s panel of Android users in India to provide a pulse on the volatile smartphone and 4G feature phone market in the second quarter of 2018. Strategy Analytics VP David Kerr noted:
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The 4G feature phone phenomena reflects huge, pent-up demand for a more affordable smartphone-like experience, either as a replacement for existing devices or as an additional device for the huge portion of India buyers who use multiple SIMs. 4G feature phones will without a doubt be a major factor in the replacement cycle in 2018 and 2019. There is huge interest in a cheaper 4G experience as can be seen from our Android AppOptix panel results below”.
Senior analyst Rajeev Nair added:
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The battle for replacement smartphone sales is intense, with no local India vendor in the top six positions in the first quarter of 2018. 4G feature phones are set to grow by four times in 2018 and could capture more than half of the overall feature phone market in India through 2020. However, new Android Go-based smartphones are expected to challenge this growth momentum from the second half of 2018 onwards”.
