Datawind is the Indian tablet market leader in Q4 2015, beating Samsung, Micromax, Lenovo, Apple and iBall.
Datawind has 20.7 percent tablet market share against Samsung’s 15.8 percent, Micromax’s 15.5 percent, Lenovo’s 13.8 percent and iBall’s 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Market research agency IDC said tablet market in India declined 18.7 percent in Q4 2015 over previous quarter and fell 10.1 percent over the same period last year to 0.86 million.
However, with each of previous two quarters clocking over a million units of shipments, total tablet market for 2015 increased 8.2 percent to 3.8 million units, recovering from a sharp dip in 2014.
Datawind, which mainly focused on entry level sub $100 tablet segment, almost doubled tablet shipments in Q4 2015.
“Cost benefits through local manufacturing, free internet bundled tablets, higher online presence in Q4 2015 were few key factors which worked in favor of Datawind,” said IDC.
Samsung India has recorded 8.7 percent drop in tablet shipments against Q3 2015. Samsung, the number one smartphone maker in India, is dominating the premium end of the category with Android based detachables i.e. Galaxy Tab S2.
Tablet shipments of Micromax dipped sequentially 24.1 percent in Q4 2015 with market share of 15.5 percent. The Indian vendor’s tablet shipments more than doubled over the same period last year in Q4.
Micromax’ detachable accounted for more than 1/3rd of the category’s overall volume.
Lenovo’s four quarter tablet shipments grew 5.7 percent for 13.8 percent share in the Indian tablet market. Commercial segment is the key driver for Lenovo’s healthy 57.6 percentage annual growth in 2015.
“Majority of detachables shipped in 2015 were in $200-$300 price band, primarily driven by local vendors such as Micromax and iBall. On the premium end, Samsung dominates but competition is likely to get intense with Apple entering the market with iPad pro and Microsoft Surface Pro joining the league in Q1 2016,” said Karthik J, senior market analyst at IDC India.
Vina Krishnan
editor@telecomlead.com
