Post IDC released report about India device shipment market size in 2013, all focused on phenomenal growth in Smartphone segment. The attention towards Smartphone and its projected growth forecast took the shine out of Feature phone market. Everyone seems excited about CY13 Smartphone shipment of 44 million out of total shipment of 256 million. Smartphone share still command less than 20% of the total device shipment. Did one observe that overall device shipment market size experienced YoY growth of 17.8%. The feature phone shipment experienced YoY growth of around 5%.
The underline YoY volume growth in Feature phone, Smartphone and overall are 10.5 Mn, 27.8Mn and 39Mn respectively. It clearly depicts that feature phone volume is not falling but growing at slower pace. The analyst forecast of trend diversion towards Smartphone is not supported w.r.t released numbers by IDC.
It also raises question marks about the potentials of Application Developer focusing totally on Smartphone instead of Smart Delivery. Generally users change their devices in 14-16 months and prefer to opt for low to medium priced and graded devices which generally works fine across different wireless standards. It is also important to understand that support of wireless network is not important but the underline cost in order to access underline wireless network is important.
The rush by the Application Developer to reach out to Indian Smartphone user and projecting huge revenue potential may bring same level of shock waves the way VAS Industry received it. I still remember that in 2007-2008, All pundits were talking about Mobile Operator attached VAS revenue growth and unbelievable revenue projection. All went awfully wrong but Pundits were fast enough to put the blame on regulatory environment. It is also important for Pundits to take regulatory risk as one of the KPI’s before projecting about future.
It’s not too late where Application Developer should be focusing on Feature phones and Developers having Solutions or Products or Applications will have higher probability of Success compared to Applications Developer focusing on Smartphone. I have the prerequisite data which is nothing but sparkling facts. Rushing in race is not going to make the Applications successful but carefully articulated Applications with backward compatibility support of feature phone is going to crack the market and will carry the potential of market leader.
