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India to have 810m smartphone users by 2021 as sales increase

The figures were revealed in Ericsson’s recent Mobility Report for 2016. India remains one of few smartphone markets worldwide that are continuing to see strong and sustained quarterly growth. The country is emerging into the digital age, undergoing a cultural revolution around the internet in the process.
The top mobile app in the nation is communications client WhatsApp. It is followed by Google search and YouTube. The survey found music streaming and videos are the most popular form of smartphone entertainment worldwide. Over half of all internet users watch online videos every week.
The report also found that people are demanding more from their smartphones. Subscriptions to LTE 4G data grew throughout the first quarter of the year to a total of 1.2 billion worldwide. In India, 99 percent of all mobile traffic will be driven by data-based services by 2021, with consumption estimated at around one billion gigabytes.
Today, research firm Gartner said it expected worldwide smartphone sales to slow in 2016, rising by just 7 percent. The record highest growth occurred in 2010 at 73 percent as consumers were won over by waves of new smartphones.
“The smartphone market will no longer grow at the levels it has reached over the last seven years,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “Smartphone sales recorded their highest growth in 2010, reaching 73 percent.”
Gartner said the market has now achieved 90 percent penetration in mature markets in America, Western Europe, Japan and some regions of Asia. This will slow future growth, placing an emphasis on countries that are still developing, including India and China.
Smartphones remain expensive in India, a key factor that prevents many people from upgrading from feature phones. Prices are expected to fall as more handsets become available though, expanding the market exponentially. Smartphone sales to the nation are expected to reach 139 million units this year, a 29.5 percent increase over 2015.
Gartner expects to see a shift in the dominance of manufacturers too. As Asian brands begin to increase their outreach, it is likely Western consumers will begin to look towards new devices with different designs to the familiar iPhone and mainstream Android handsets. Chinese brands Xiaomi and Huawei are currently growing to global prominence and India has its own manufacturers that could do the same.
Last week, Indian-based Micromax announced it would begin to sell phones in China within the next year in an attempt to boost sales and its worldwide presence. It currently sells around one million handsets a month in its native market amid increasing competition from rivals and foreign brands.

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