India topples Japan to become world’s third largest smartphone market

India has surpassed Japan in terms of smartphone volumes and is now the third largest smartphone market worldwide during Q1, 2013, according to a Strategy Analytics report. This is mainly contributed by the improved distribution network of players like Samsung, Micromax and Apple, which are reported to be the key volume drivers in the Indian smartphone market.

According to the report, the Indian smartphone market is growing with 163 percent year on year volume expansion, which is about four times faster than the global average at 39 percent year on year volume growth. While markets like China records 86 percent year-on-year volume growth, Japan has 24 percent year-on-year volume growth and the US has 19 percent year-on-year growth average.

Another interesting finding of the Strategy Analytics report is that Micromax has moved up to second spot in key brands driving this growth rate of the smartphone market. Micromax stands second only to Samsung, and is followed by Apple. Reportedly, other domestic players like Karbonn and Spice are also growing rapidly between 200 percent and 500 percent on an annual basis. While India is going to be in the limelight amongst the global vendors, the report clearly indicates that this growth in the Indian smartphone market will also have a major contribution by the domestic players. Interestingly, according to the report, Nokia is no longer among the top three smartphone vendors in the country, which is a little shocking.