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India seen as 2nd largest smartphone market next year
New Delhi:India will overtake the US as the second-largest smartphone market next year, and local players, led by Reliance Industries, will benefit in the near term, says Morgan Stanley in its latest report based on a survey.
“Following our survey of more than 2,600 urban smartphone buyers in India, we raise our global smartphone unit growth estimate by one percentage point in each of 2017 and 2018,” said the report.
“We model a 23 percent compounded annual growth rate for Indian smartphones through 2018 and the country should account for 30 percent of the global unit growth over the next two years and become the second-largest market next year in terms of units,” it said.
It also felt Apple and Samsung to be better positioned in the long run.
“Reliance Industries is our play on the rising tide. In near term, many players should benefit from the 4G smartphone and network proliferation,” it said, referring to the Jio service, the nation-wide commercial launch of which is expected later this year.
Morgan Stanley report said Jio is focused on 4G and has launched its own handset brand “LYF” that could bundle with SIMs and its voice and data plans. “We believe this could be disruptive to the market and expect Jio to gain 30 million subscribers in 2016 and 60 million in 2017.”
The report also said while the high-end smartphone market in India is small, with only 6 million units at the $300-plus range, or 6 percent of the total, macroeconomic and demographic trends, and an appetite for 4G services, will lead users to upgrade to better smartphones over time.
This apart, it also projected volume players like Foxconn and MediaTek to benefit. “We like FIH (Foxconn) which has exposure to many Chinese and Indian brands, while we think MediaTek will be challenged by pricing and margin pressure,” it said.
“We expect the high-end market to unfold like it did in China, where Samsung and Apple dominate. Our survey indicates Samsung is leading in India with 46 percent user share and slightly higher purchase intentions,” it said.
“Apple needs to build its brand as, surprisingly, half of survey respondents were not aware of the company. However, this means Apple has the most room for upside as our survey shows it could double share in the $400 segment to 40 percent,” it said.
“We increase our total iPhone unit estimates by 5 percent and 4 percent in 201718 and 2018-19.”
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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