New Delhi: India will have one billion smartphone users by 2026. According to a Deloitte report released on Tuesday, the number of smartphone users will increase with the increase in sales of mobile phones equipped with internet facilities in rural areas. There were 1.2 billion mobile phone users in India by the year 2021. Out of this, 750 million use smartphones.
According to Deloitte’s 2022 Global TMT (Technology, Media and Entertainment, Telecommunications) estimate, “the number of people using smartphones in the domestic market is projected to increase to one billion by 2026.”
According to Deloitte, between 2021 and 2026, the number of smartphone customers in rural areas will grow at the rate of six percent on an annual basis. Whereas in urban areas it will increase by 2.5 percent annually. According to a Deloitte analysis, India’s smartphone demand will grow by six percent year-on-year to 400 million in 2026 from 300 million in 2021.
Furthermore, the recently announced incentive package of $10 billion to drive semiconductor manufacturing in India and the PLI schemes will encourage handset manufacturing in India to service the second-largest smartphone market in the next five years.
“India will have 1 billion smartphone users by 2026. This growth will result in over 75 percent of the subscribers using smartphones by 2026 from a sub- seventy percent as of date. 5G enabled devices will contribute 80 percent to the devices being sold in the year 2026 and Indian consumers will purchase 840 million 5G smartphones over the next 5 years valued at $130 billion. In addition, 5G will fuel an incremental sale of 135 million smartphone units over the next 5 years,” Peeyush Vaish, Partner and Telecom Sector Leader, Deloitte India, said.
It added that the global shortage of semiconductor chips has affected the manufacturing industries across the world. As demand soars, supply is likely to be constrained in the near term, but gradually ease up in 2023. With an increase in supply and normalization of demand and the specific initiatives floated by GOI, India can play on the strength of its large and thriving domestic market to form a basis for setting up the domestic semiconductor and electronics manufacturing industries in the next three-five years.
