Indian Mobile Phone Sales Drop For First Time In 20 Years: Study

NEW DELHI: Indian mobile-phone sales have dropped for the first time in 20 years, raising the question: Is a slowdown at hand for the world's fastest-growing Smartphone market?

Mobile sales dropped 14.5 percent the first quarter (Q1, January-March) 2015, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, compared to Q4 (October-December) 2014 - from 62 million handsets in Q4 2014 to 53 million handsets in Q1 2015, according to a report of CyberMedia Research, a consultancy.

The decline in Smartphone sales from quarter-to-quarter was 7.14 percent. Cheaper "feature" phones performed worse, with an 18.3 percent sales decline over the same period.

India became the fastest-growing market for Smartphones in Asia-Pacific in 2014, and is supposed to overtake U.S. as the second-largest Smartphone market globally, with 204 million Smartphone users by 2016, according to a study by eMarketer, a research firm.

Is this a cyclical issue or a larger problem? Does the data indicate that India's mobile-phone growth is topping out? Experts believe cyclical glitches account for the downturn in mobile-phone sales: Unexciting phones, tax issues, increased competition and even extended Chinese new-year festivities.

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