The number of smartphone users in India was estimated to reach over one billion in 2023. It was estimated by 2040, the number of smartphone users in India will reach 1.55 billion.

Smartphone users in India – additional information

The number of smartphone users worldwide is projected to amount to nearly 7.7 billion by 2027. It is expected that, by 2022, more than two third of the total global population will use a smartphone. Due to China’s rapid growth, the country has become a distant leader in the smartphone market, leaving the U.S., which previously held the top position, far behind. Smartphone users in China already accounted for 72 percent of the country’s population in 2022. By 2028, more than 83 percent of the population in China is projected to use a smartphone. For 2022, the number of smartphone users in China amounted to nearly 1.04 billion.

India, the second most populous country in the world, passed the United States in number of smartphone users in 2017. Around 223 million people in the U.S. use a smartphone by 2017, compared to 340 million in India. Despite this increase in volume, the U.S. still has a higher smartphone penetration rate than India. The smartphone penetration rate in India reached close to 71 percent by 2023, a penetration rate that the U.S. already reached in 2019. Samsung was the leading smartphone vendor in India in 2022, followed by Xiaomi and Vivo.

In 2024, around seven percent of people in India purchased smartphones online and was estimated to reach *** percent in 2029. In 2022, the volume of smartphone shipments across India was around *** million. And the most popular brand at the end of 2023 was *******.

The penetration rate of mobile phones in India was about **** percent in financial year 2022. This was estimated to significantly increase to over ** percent in financial year 2026 in the country.

According to a survey conducted by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum from November to December 2019, the highest penetration rate among smartphone users was in the age group of ******** years, with ** percent. This was followed by the users between ********* years old. Older Indians surveyed had a lower penetration rate for smartphone usage.  Baby boomers to millennials – smartphone addiction Smartphones, once a status symbol has now become a common product in the country due to disposable incomes, faster lifestyle, and the necessity to stay connected. Also, an open operating system and low data rates have fueled this growth. In India, increased availability of content across various genres, regional languages, and communicating over social media and different applications led to an increased usage of smartphones. Smartphone pricing in the country The Indian smartphone market was dominated by those that cost below 20,000 Indian rupees. This was evident from the share of the leading smartphone models in the country. Even though Apple dominated mobile markets worldwide, India had a different story. Though iPhones led in the premium segment, its share in the overall smartphone market remained near negligible. The smartphone market in the country was saturated with high competition, forcing companies to work on wafer-thin margins. Around 30 major smartphone brands were vying for their spotlight in the Indian smartphone market.

In 2020, 53 percent of India's total population accessed the internet from their mobile phones. This was expected to grow to 96 percent by 2040, indicating a significant rise in the country's mobile internet user base.

India’s digital journey is one of exuberance. The country had the world’s second-largest internet population at over 1.2 billion users in 2023. Of these, 1.05 billion users accessed the internet via their mobile phones. Estimates suggest that this figure would reach over 1.2 billion by 2050.

The path towards digital India

Mobile internet has been such a positive development in the country’s digital progress, that in 2019, over 73 percent of India’s total web traffic coming from mobile phones. But how did this come to be? Two main factors point to the sudden spike in mobile internet penetration in the south Asian country. Firstly, the increased availability of cheap smartphones since 2010 had created a fertile ground for digital adoption and literacy. Along with this, the Indian government understood the vitality of investments in its telecommunications sector and further opened the market with new telecom spectrum licenses.

Reliance Jio - the market disruptor

With this backdrop, in September 2016, Reliance Jio entered the Indian market, promising customers with cheap 4G, high speed data plans along with free voice calling. Within six months of its launch, the company had attracted over a 100 million customers and by the end of 2019, it had the highest wireless telecom subscriber base in India. Jio’s competitive pricing drove down the data pricing among other established telecom operators, leading to a cumulative growth in mobile internet accessibility as well as affordability.

China is leading the ranking by number of smartphone users, recording ****** million users. Following closely behind is India with ****** million users, while Seychelles is trailing the ranking with **** million users, resulting in a difference of ****** million users to the ranking leader, China. Smartphone users here are limited to internet users of any age using a smartphone. The shown figures have been derived from survey data that has been processed to estimate missing demographics.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

The number of mobile internet users in India increased by 15.39 percent in 2020. A steady decline in new users is expected in the coming years with the growth rate for 2025 estimated at 5.14 percent.

With approximately 6.1 million smartphones shipped to India, in the second quarter of 2024, Samsung stayed in the third spot in the market, losing to Xiaomi and Vivo. In the third quarter of 2020 it saw the highest smartphone sales volume for Samsung during the presented period.

In the second quarter of 2024, Xiaomi shipped approximately 6.7 million smartphones in India. It was a significant year-over-year growth at 24 percent. The third quarter of 2020 saw over 13.1 million smartphone shipments, making it the highest for Xiaomi during the presented period. Though a general declining trend could be observed since first quarter of 2019, Xiaomi was still able to maintain its market leading position at 18 percent. Xiaomi’s success in India From the moment Xiaomi launched in 2010, it has never looked back. Since 2016, the annual revenue for the smartphone manufacturer has grown exponentially. India has been no different in this regard. The first Xiaomi smartphone in India was launched in July 2014. Within two years, it gained a considerable market share. This trend has continued making it one of the leading smartphone market players in the country. Understanding the country’s requirements, relocating supply chains within India and investing in the domestic distribution network and research and development were some reasons for this success. Segmentation and variation Xiaomi sells its phones in India under several brands, including Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO. Especially POCO, it has excelled in the 10,000 to 15,000 Indian rupees segment. However, the highest growth in the smartphone market lately came from the super-premium segment, dominated by Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones. As of 2023, the average selling price of smartphones in India was around 255 U.S. dollars. It increased almost 100 dollars in comparison with the price in 2020. One of the main contributors to the price increase was the larger 5G distribution. India is one of the leading countries in terms of 5G availability.

In the second quarter of 2024, Vivo shipped around 6.7 million smartphones in India. It shared the top spot in terms of market share with Xiaomi in the quarter. The highest quarterly smartphone shipments were achieved in the third quarter of 2020, with 8.8 million units.

After fierce competition among vivo, Samsung, and Xiaomi over the past few years, vivo became the leading smartphone brand in India. Vivo led the market in the last three quarters. However, in the first two quarters of 2024, Xiaomi and Samsung ranked as high as or higher than Vivo. Aside from Samsung, the other four top smartphone brands are Chinese. Smartphone market share in India The number of smartphone users in India, the most populous country in the world, was on the rise. In 2023, the number of smartphone users in the country surpassed *********** for the first time. This figure was forecasted to jump to nearly **** billion by 2040. And, around ***** percent of the population in India purchase their phones online. This growth can also be observed in the volume of smartphone shipments in India. The number of smartphone shipments in India increased from **** million units in the second quarter of 2012 to ** million units in the third quarter of 2024. Major players South Korean giant Samsung, a leader in the global smartphone market, had been the top smartphone vendor in India since early 2013, when the company held about 30 percent of the market share, until the end of 2017. But its position has been challenged by the Chinese smartphone manufacturers like vivo, Xiaomi and OPPO. Vivo is a Chinese tech company based in Guangdong. It's one of the top five smartphone manufacturers in the world. And Xiaomi has quickly risen to the top of China's crowded technology market and is now one of the leading consumer electronics manufacturers globally, since its founding in 2010. Xiaomi specializes primarily in smartphones, but is also active in other markets, and it started manufacturing electric vehicles in 2023.

The share of Apple iPhone in the Indian mobile phone market reached around **** percent as of May 2025. There was a general growth trend in the market share of iPhone over the observed time frame. In this period, it reached its highest market share in February 2025, at **** percent.

The statistic shows the share of the population in the United States that uses a smartphone in the United States from 2018 to 2025. In 2025, 87.08 percent of the population in the United States is forecast to use a smartphone.

Smartphone user penetration - additional information
A smartphone can be defined as a mobile device that uses an identifiable operating system and has a more advanced technological capability than a basic mobile phone. The number of U.S mobile users who have a smartphone is set to more than triple between 2011 and 2017 to almost 80 percent of all mobile users. This means that the number of overall smartphone users is forecast to top 200 million by 2017.

The smartphone penetration rate of mobile users is similarly high in the United Kingdom, with over 80 percent expected to own a smart device by 2017. However the smartphone market is set to grow at a slower rate in China with just under half of mobile users forecast to own a smartphone in 2017. The percentage is even lower in India where 32 percent of mobile phone users are predicted to use a smartphone by 2017.

Android phones and iPhones remain the most popular choice for smartphones with the two respective Operating Systems holding of 90 percent of the market sales in the U.S. in 2013. This trend looks set to continue with two new competing smartphones on the market, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (Android) and the iPhone 6 (iOS), both unveiled in 2014.

In a survey conducted in 2023, about 80 percent of respondents with a higher level of education in India owned a smartphone. By comparison, only one-third of respondents with less education owned a smartphone.

In 2024, Vivo had the highest share in the smartphone shipments volume across India at approximately ** percent. In a close competition, Samsung held the second spot with a ** percent market share. The same year, the total number of smartphones sold in India reached *** million units.

According to a survey conducted in rural India in 2023, approximately ** percent of respondents stated that children used mobile phones to play games. Meanwhile, over ** percent of respondents opined children used smartphones to download and watch movies during the recorded period.

According to a pan-India survey conducted in 2024, on smartphones, close to 16 percent of the respondents stated that they owned a smartphone from Samsung. This was closely followed by Vivo, with about 15.7 percent market share. Samsung had a share of over 19 percent in the total smartphone shipments across the globe.

How many smartphone mobile network subscriptions are active worldwide? The number of smartphone mobile network subscriptions worldwide reached almost seven billion in 2023, and is forecast to exceed 7.7 billion by 2028. China, India, and the United States are the countries with the highest number of smartphone mobile network subscriptions. Smartphone unit sales levelling off The smartphone market still has high growth potential, with the smartphone penetration rate remaining lower than 70 percent in many highly populated markets, in particular China and India. Global smartphone revenue reached 481 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, but was expected to have fallen to 463 billion in 2022. Despite stagnating sales, the increasing average selling price of smartphones is expected to support the market over the coming years. Leading smartphone vendors The leading smartphone vendors today are Samsung and Apple. These technology companies account for about half of all smartphone shipments worldwide.

With fast and cheap mobile data plans and the largest population in the world, India has a lot to offer in the smartphone industry. Most of the Indian people use smartphones to connect to the internet, making it a huge market for many smartphone brands. Around ** million smartphone units were shipped across India in the first quarter of 2025. Over the presented period, a general growth trend could be observed. Smartphone users in India The Indian smartphone user base has a lot of potential to grow since many people still do not have internet subscription. However, the initiative by the central government to digitize the economy and the availability of cheap internet plans by private sector firms such as Reliance Jio, has resulted in a significant increase. In 2024, around ***** percent of people in India purchased smartphones online and was estimated to reach *** percent in 2029. The market of smartphones in India The Indian smartphone market is filled with many brands. Vivo, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer from China, accounted for around **** percent of the shipment share of smartphones across India in 2024. In January 2025, the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G was the best-selling smartphone in the country with four percent of the total market share.