India fourth largest smartphone market, says GSMA

Smartphones will account for two out of every three mobile connections globally by 2020, said global mobile operators industry body GSMA .

The study, "Smartphone forecasts and assumptions, 2007-2020" conducted by GSMA Intelligence, a research wing of the GSMA, predicts that the number of smartphone connections will grow three-fold over the next six years.

The report puts India at the fourth slot in top 10 global smartphones markets. According to GSMA, India had 111-million smartphone connections in the second quarter of 2014, trailing leader China, US and Brazil.

The study predicted that by 2020, four out of every five smartphone connections worldwide will come from the developing world.

The developing world overtook the developed nations in terms of smartphone connections in 2011 and today, accounts for two in every three smartphones on the planet.

Asia Pacific accounts for about half of the global smartphone connections, even though smartphone penetration in the region is currently below 40%

"The smartphone has sparked a wave of global innovation that has brought new services to millions and efficiencies to businesses of every type," said Hyunmi Yang, Chief Strategy Officer at GSMA, said in a statement.

The finding points out that basic phones, feature phones and data terminals such as tablets, dongles and routers will account for the remaining three billion connections, while it excludes machine to machine from the total connections.

The GSMA Intelligence report said that rapid erosion of the Average Selling Price (ASP) of smartphones; demand for low-end smartphones and bundled smartphones by operators are driving the growth.

"As the industry evolves, smartphones are becoming lifestyle hubs that are creating opportunities for mobile industry players in vertical markets such as financial services, healthcare, home automation and transport," he said.