‘Smartphone adoption to touch 49% by 2020’
Smartphone adoption in India is likely to rise to 49 per cent of total mobile subscribers in 2020 from 28 per cent in 2016.
“During 2016, India overtook the US to become the second largest smartphone market in the world (behind China). With adoption at under 30 per cent, it will be the main driver of smartphone growth in the Asia Pacific region over the next few years, adding 360 million smartphone connections by 2020,” said a report by Care Ratings.
“Smartphone adoption in India is likely to increase to 49 per cent in 2020 from 28 per cent in 2016. Smartphone adoption in China is 71 per cent in 2016, which is likely to grow to 74 per cent in 2020,” said Bhagyashree Bhati, research analyst at Care Ratings.
The report said by the end of 2016 the number of smartphone connections in the Asia Pacific had crossed 2 billion. Three of the top five markets in smartphone adoption are Singapore (83 per cent), Australia (80 per cent) and South Korea (80 per cent).
“China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines have been the main drivers of growth, adding more than 210 million smartphone connections in the last year,” it said.
Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines and India were beginning to see accelerating migration to 4G, driven by investments in networks, increased competition, falling device prices and growing consumer appetite, the report added.
Australia, South Korea and Japan, the top three markets worldwide in terms of 4G penetration, will continue to be leaders, but China will also play a major part, surpassing 1 billion 4G connections during 2018. India is expected to add 206 million new subscribers by 2020. The growth in subscriber addition in the Asia Pacific region would be largely driven by India and China, the report observed.