India 4G tablet market grows 55 percent in Q3 2016

Nov 26, 2016

Tablet shipments in India reached 1.06 million in Q3 2016, showing flat growth over the same period last year and growing 7.8 percent over Q2 2016.

4G tablet shipments rose 55 percent in Q3 2016 over previous quarter. 4G tablets account for almost one-fourth of total tablet shipments in Q3 2016 against 15.3 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Samsung dominates the 4G tablets category with its J max. iBall leads the shipments of 4G tablets amongst the Indian vendors.

Telecom network operators such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone India, Telenor, Reliance Communications and Reliance Jio are in the process of expanding their 4G networks across the country to gain from the mobile data boom.

Datawind is the Indian tablet market leader with 26.1 percent share. With second manufacturing plant in India, increasing retail presence and television sales in deeper pockets of India, Datawind’s tablet volume grew 73 percent.

Samsung maintains its second position with 26.2 percent growth over previous quarter in Q3 2016. Samsung benefitted from J max tablet.

iBall has managed to be at third place as shipments grew 2.9 percent sequentially. iBall’s tablet shipments dropped 7.5 percent year-on-year. iBall leads the 4G shipments of tablets amongst the Indian vendors.

Lenovo has achieved 15.5 percent sequential growth and 13.3 percent over the same period last year. While commercial segment is the major contributor, consumer shipments of Lenovo grew over 50 percent due to the festive season.

Micromax retained its place in top 5 though its shipments were flat over previous quarter and fell 39 percent year-on-year. Micromax’s shift in focus from Detachable to entry level clamshell notebook category has resulted in negligible presence in detachable category in recent quarters.

Karthik J, senior market analyst, Client Devices, IDC India: “Commercial segment continues to grow at a healthy pace accounting to over one-fifth of total tablet shipments in Q3 2016 with key contributors being education, government and large enterprise segments.”

Source: Telecom Lead