India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China with around 750 million users , is struggling to get new smartphone buyers, as the average person in the country finds it hard to afford a brand-new smartphone. Instead of switching to a new smartphone, millions of Indian consumers prefer to continue with their existing feature phones or only upgrade to a new feature phone. The latter has resulted in growth in feature phone shipments in the country despite these phones being pretty old-fashioned and having just a handful of features compared to smartphones, which help solve most on-the-go computing requirements for a typical buyer.
According to data shared by market analyst firm Counterpoint, feature phone shipments in India saw 10% year-on-year growth last year, up from -31% in 2022. This growth comes as existing feature phone buyers resist from picking a new smartphone. Of the total feature phone market, 4G feature phone shipments in India grew to 25% in 2023 from 9% in 2022.
However, 2G feature phones still dominate the Indian market, with a 75% share, per Counterpoint. Indian telecom giant Reliance Jio leads the 4G feature phone market, with a share of 27%, followed by Transsion Holdings-owned Itel and Indian phone maker Lava at 24% and 18%, respectively, according to Counterpoint. The telecom operator offers a range of models in the segment along with dedicated tariff plans and access to services digital services including the country’s real-time payment.
