The ASSOCHAM has in its study pointed out that sales of smartphones in the country are set to shoot up to 160 million in fiscal year 2017 from 100 million this year on the back of prices becoming affordable for a larger number of people.
It said that the in-built camera, other internet-enabled features, coupled with replacement of ordinary phones with the smart devices at a rapid pace were few of the reasons.
The sales of smartphone almost doubled from 44 million units in 2013 to 100 million units in 2016 and is expected to touch 160 million units by 2017, the ASSOCHAM is its latest study said.
With the smartphones serving the needs of amateur photographers and enthusiasts, the demand for the digital camera sales, however, dropped by more than 35 percent in the past one year.
The affordable smartphones priced between Rs. 4000-10,000 accounts for accounts for 78 percent of all smartphone sales equipped with almost similar features which a customer gets in sub-Rs 10,000 cameras which has reduced the need for digital cameras.
In the survey conducted, most of the respondents said the biggest advantage of clicking pictures with smartphones is that they can be shared instantly with your friends and family; a feature which is absent with most of the point and short cameras.
“The technology is changing at such a fast pace that the product developers have to think ahead of times; or else the top selling products of the present times can become outdated, without the manufacturers and those dominating the market today realising it,” said ASSOCHAM Secretary D.S. Rawat.
Rawat added that another feature of the smart devices market in India is that the country has a huge telephone subscribers’ base of about a billion users who are becoming aspirational.
About 93 percent of the customers now prefer smartphones over digital camera for both photos and video capture.
Almost 75 percent of the sales of Mobiles and Tablets came from consumers’ residing in Tier-I and Tier -II cities.
Meanwhile, the sales of personal Computer, MP3 players have already started declining with the impact of smartphone and tablet adoption.
The study said that one of the reasons for the subsequent rise in the demand of smart phones is due to increase in social networking site.
Rawat asserted that youth in the country share photographs online and upload photographs, which have become a new trend in the metros the need for smart phones has risen.