India clings to cheap feature phones as brands struggle to tap new smartphone buyers

India is struggling to get new smartphone buyers, as millions of Indians don’t go for an upgrade and continue to be on feature phones.

India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China with around 750 million users, is struggling to get new smartphone buyers, as the average person in the country finds it hard to afford a brand-new smartphone.

Instead of switching to a new smartphone, millions of Indian consumers prefer to continue with their existing feature phones or only upgrade to a new feature phone. The latter has resulted in growth in feature phone shipments in the country despite these phones being pretty old-fashioned and having just a handful of features compared to smartphones, which help solve most on-the-go computing requirements for a typical buyer.