Indian telecom mkt sees 36% value growth in offline retail

New Delhi: The Indian telecom market saw 36 per cent value growth in offline retail last year, and 2023 is expected to be stable with value-driven growth for the domestic telecom market compared to 2022, a report said on Thursday.

While the global telecom market closed 2022 with a 9.7 per cent decline in revenue compared to the previous year, India was one of the silver linings, according to the report by market intelligence firm GfK.

In 2022, India registered "a double-digit revenue growth in the same period over the previous year including smartphones, core wearables and TWS mobile headsets", said Kartik Vasudevan, GfK expert for the Telecom market. "While the top-tier towns continue to have a significant share, the shift in consumer needs and changing lifestyles are pushing higher adoption of smart devices in Tier 3 and below towns which contributed to 50 per cent of the smartphone sales unit in 2022 while for wearables it contributed to 21 per cent.

"Overall, the next level of telecom market growth will be driven by premium handsets, 5G, and wearable devices," Vasudevan added. The smartphone category, including phablets, saw a 15 per cent demand increase from January to December 2022 compared to the previous year.

The average selling price (ASP) of smartphones was Rs 17,032, which was a 17 per cent growth over 2021.

Accordingly, demand for premium devices also increased, with the revenue contribution of 5G models moving to 44 per cent in 2022. At the same time, devices with a larger storage capacity of more than 256GB grew 122 per cent in revenue in 2022. Wearables as a segment continued its upward trajectory in India and grew by 127 per cent in terms of value over the previous year in offline retail.