Ericsson Sees India Smartphone Market Touching 52 Crore Units by 2020

The size of the domestic smartphone market is expected to touch 52 crore by 2020 from 9 crore in 2013, a top executive of global mobile broadband services provider Ericsson has said.

"A strong user base and high-speed broadband connectivity will fundamentally change the way people live, interact and do business; with consumers expecting data connectivity at all times, everywhere.

"Accordingly, smartphone penetration will grow from 10 percent or 90 million devices in 2013 to 45 percent or 52 crore devices by 2020," Ericsson India Head (Strategy and Marketing), Ajay Gupta said.

Similarly, the mobile subscriber base will grow from 79.5 crore in 2013 to 114.5 crore by 2020, he said.

According to Ericsson, in 2013, the average data usage stood at 155MB per month, which is expected to reach 390MB per month per user by 2017 and by 2020 this number will touch 620MB a month.

Gupta said the number of mobile broadband users will go up four times to touch a subscriber base of 50 crore by 2020.

"One third of all mobile broadband data traffic is currently driven by social media, browsing and chat," he added.

"Consumers today expect ubiquitous and high performing networks everywhere they go," Nishant Batra, Head - Engagement Practices, Ericsson India, added. "At the same time, different applications being used by consumers require more and more from the networks. For example, if Social Media today is all about sharing images and text, tomorrow it will be all about sharing HD Video in real time. Therefore, to ensure a superior experience for consumers, operators need to ensure quality 'app coverage'. The device experience, the network experience as well as the App experience, together constitute a superior consumer experience."

Written with inputs from PTI