Total Sri Lankan market value of Rs. 22.4 billion:

Two million handsets sold last year

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Over two million new mobile handsets were sold last year in Sri Lanka with a total market value of Rs. 22.4 billion.

The bulk of phones that were marketed were Duel SIM phones mostly manufactured in China. This segment made up over 35% of total sales. Android emerged as the most preferred high end segment with half of all smart phones being shipped based on this platform.

The average selling values of smart phones during 2011 was US$ 410. Android emerged as the leading smart phone OS with a 49.9% share of shipments in 2011.

Smartphone shipments touched 0.11 million units in Sri Lanka during calendar year 2011. Samsung emerged as the leader in this segment with a 27.6% share of shipments in CY 2011, followed by Nokia with 25.4%. HTC occupied the third place with a 11.4% market share.

According to a Cyber Media Research, the leading New Delhi based IT and Telecoms market research firm, findings on mobile phone sales in Sri Lanka in 2011 calendar year, Nokia emerged as the market leader with a 46% share.

This was followed by Samsung with 22% unit sales during the year while Micromax was at third position with 16% sales.

Total 3G phone shipments to Sri Lanka touched nearly 0.32 million units during 2011. Here again Nokia emerged as the market leader in this category with a 53.2% share of units shipped, followed by Samsung and Sony- Ericsson with 25 .6% and 7.7%, respectively.

Sri Lanka, the first country in South Asia to introduce 3G services in August 2006, is poised for significant growth in its telecommunications sector, buoyed by the end of the civil war in 2009. “With the spread of 3G services to all major cities, Sri Lankan consumers would look to acquire and use more feature rich mobile handsets, thus fueling greater demand for higher generation air interface devices. This is an opportunity that vendors and service providers can exploit by bringing to market attractive value-for-money device-plus-service packages”, stated Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

“Going forward, vendors would do well to introduce handsets that support Sinhalese, as Sri Lanka would be a natural market for the same. Further, given the wet and humid climatic conditions that prevail in most parts of the country for most of the year, there could be a latent demand for water and moisture resistant handsets”, stated Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

“With increasing operator focus on data revenues and better 3G coverage the share of smartphones is likely to increase and consequently the number of models on offer from smartphone vendors are also expected to go up in 2012”, Tarun added. There are currently over 19 million mobile phones in Sri Lanka.