Kochi: Kerala has a significant share in high-end mobile phone sales in the country, though it has only 2.5 per cent of the India’s population. With population of about 3.4 crore, Kerala clocks annual cellphone sales of 5 million, which is about 15 per cent of the total population of the state.
In Kerala, the percentage of sale of smartphones is especially high. About 67 per cent of the mobiles sold in the southern state are smartphones with internet connectivity. The all-India average on this count is 47 per cent. Of the Rs 200-crore monthly sales of mobiles in Kerala, smartphones are worth Rs 165 crore. Only the rest, Rs 45 crore comes from sale of phones without net connection.
Keralites buy about 50 lakh handsets a year, whereas the country’s annual sale of mobile phones is 24 crore units. The state accounts for 3 per cent of the mobile phones sold in the country.
The state’s monthly sales of mobile phones translate into 3.7 lakh units worth a turnover of around Rs 210 crore; of these, 2 lakh are feature phones. The monthly sales of smartphones total just 1.7 lakh, yet they lead in the turnover estimates because of their higher average selling price.
Given that the monthly sales total Rs 210 crore, the annual turnover is Rs 2,600 crore, including the Onam season. The festival month alone rakes up sales worth Rs 420 crore, as per estimates. The floods this month let to a dip in that projected figure ahead of Onam, but the turnover for the rest of the months of the year remained unaffected.
Kerala has been among the prime targets of the top mobile phone companies. The state’s people are more brand-conscious that their counterparts elsewhere.