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Mobile handset market to grow 30 pc in '07: IDC

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: IDC forecasts 32 per cent growth in the mobile handset market in 2007.

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With the industry adding more than 5 million subscribers every month, handset manufacturers are ballistic about the growth in the shipments of handsets. For the handset manufacturers India promises to be one of the ‘potential markets’ which has invited companies setting up manufacturing units here.

Naveen Mishra, assistant manager, Communications Research, IDC India, said that the Indian consumer is becoming increasingly demanding in terms of the applications provided on the mobile phone.

“According to IDC's India Quarterly Mobile Handset Tracker, 1Q 2007, the overall shipments of mobile handsets in the country is forecast to cross 80 million during the calendar year 2007. This would represent a growth of 32.3 per cent over the total mobile phone shipments for CY 2006, albeit on a higher base,” Mishra said. The total shipment in last calendar year was 60.6 million units.

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Speaking on the preference of the current mobile subscribers he said that the consumers are demanding for added features like such as Bluetooth, MP3 playback, FM radio and camera.

“These features are usually available in higher end technology enabled handsets (GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA and HSDPA enabled devices). The growth in shipments of such application-enabled handsets was seen to be significantly higher (CY 2006 over CY 2005) than the average market growth of 137 per cent. For example, shipments of color screen handsets grew at over 193 per cent, those of camera phone handsets grew at over 191 per cent, while shipments of Bluetooth-enabled handsets grew at over 199 per cent,” Mishra added.

In the GSM handset category (includes GSM, GPRS, EDGE and WCDMA), 42.48 million units were shipped while the total CDMA handset shipments was of 18.14 million.

Lloyd Mathias, director marketing India (mobile devices) Motorola India said that with the increase in the net additions every month the handset industry augurs well for the industry.

Projections for this year in the industry are 80 to 100 million handsets. With the increase in the net additions every month the handset industry will grow to a great extent. However, the CDMA handset comprises only around 25 per cent of the overall handset shipments for the industry.

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