94% of phones sold in India are country made: CMR

According to a new report by research firm CMR, the majority of the mobile handsets are now being manufactured in India at CKD level.

The report said India mobile handset market recorded 9 percent sequential growth during the quarter. Smartphones grew sequentially by 29 percent whereas Feature phone shipments improved by 24 percent while fusion phones witnessed a sequential decline of 41 percent.

" As of 3Q 2018, local manufacturing has now seen a significant boost, with almost 94 percent being manufactured in India. CKD level manufacturing constitutes almost half of the overall market. Major smartphone brands such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi have moved largely to SMT."

"Reliance Jiophone also entered into SMT production in this quarter. Among domestic players, Lava has the major share in SMT production," said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR said.

Meanwhile, the report said CKD level manufacturing surpassed semi-knocked down (SKD) manufacturing in the third quarter of 2018.

This quarter also saw aggressive launches by several smartphone players in the wake of the festive season.

During the quarter, many smartphone brands went for aggressive launches and contributing to the decreasing shelf-life of smartphone models.

"3Q 2018 saw sharp growth in Smartphones as well as feature phones meant for the festive season. Highly competitive smartphone market witnessed traction towards online sales supported by online sales with attractive discounts, buyback offers and financing schemes in October," Narinder Kumar, Lead Analyst, IIG-CMR.

The report also pointed out that during 3Q 2018, multi-camera Smartphones came to the fore, with primary multi-camera mobiles growing by 70 percent during the quarter.

"From a technology perspective, it is interesting to see the sport in multi-camera Smartphones. With all things equal, smartphone brands are turning to multi-cameras as a unique proposition to attract buyers. We anticipate growth in multi-camera Smartphones to constitute half of all smartphones shipped in India by end-2018," said Anand Singh, Analyst, IIG-CMR.