Kerala has emerged as the state with the highest smartphone penetration in the country, according to data released by CyberMedia Research, a market intelligence firm tracking the technology sector.
CMR’s data also reveales that on a pan-India level, about 47% of the mobile phone users in India are on smartphones, with the remaining 53% still on feature phones.
Kerala led the charts with a penetration of 65%, followed by Gujarat at close to 60% and Punjab at about 59%.
Maharashtra, at about 56%, and Delhi, at about 55%, occupied No.4 and No.5 slots respectively.
Along with Himachal Pradesh (53%) and Tamil Nadu (53%), there were seven states where smartphones accounted for more than half of the total handsets in use in the state.
The numbers are based on the total number of phones in use in each of the states as of 31 March, 2018.
The state with the lowest smartphone penetration was Assam (27%) and Bihar (30%).
Interestingly, CMR’s smartphone estimate of about 47% in the total devices in use in India is higher than the share of smartphones among new phones sold in India.
According to IDC, only about 35% of the 85 mln new phones sold in India during the first three months of this year were smartphones, while about 25% were Jiophones and the remaining were traditional feature phones.
CMR and other market trackers usually count Jiophones among feature phones, even though technically, the phones operate on a third party operating system known as KaiOS, and has support for apps designed for the operating system.