India has surpassed the US to become the world’s second largest smartphone market, crossing 220 million in active unique smartphone users in 2015. It comes as little to no surprise that so many people around the world use smartphones for shopping, banking, and many day-to-day activities (click here for smartphone influenced e-commerce statistics). However for India to surpass the US market speaks volumes to how the economy and the markets may be developing in their respective countries.

According to Hong-Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research, Smartphone shipments in India grew a healthy 15 percent annually in the December quarter of 2015 versus the previous quarter and 23 percent on the year-earlier quarter. In all, India crossed the 100 Million smartphones-sold-in-year milestone at the end of 2015. This number is apparently expected to grow further in coming years. This growth goes to show how important it is for other countries to test out what products may do well to help with their economy, for example, they can always conduct Concept Testing as well as other research analysis, to see what the potential outcome could be.

India continues to attract new smartphone brands every quarter adding to more than 150 smartphone brands selling their devices in the country. Furthermore, government driven initiatives such as Make in India and Digital India have gained serious momentum in 2015 to attract more players into the mobile value chain, according to the release.

Almost half of the total mobile phones shipped in India during the quarter were assembled in India driving the “Make in India” trend, and Counterpoint expects this trend to accelerate in 2016.

For the full year, Samsung retained top slot with a market share of 19.8% and 25.7% in overall mobile phone market and smartphone market respectively. Micromax stood at the second position with 14.3% share in the smartphone market, followed by Lenovo-Motorola combine with 11.4% share.