The smartphone industry in India is projecting that smartphone penetration will reach over 500 million users within the next three years. However, whilst the number currently sits at 350 million users, the Indian Communication and IT manager Ravi Shankar Prasad expects the country to reach its target of 500 million by as soon as the end of this year. Research firm CMR announced that in Q1 this year, 23.4 million smartphones were shipped in India, with a forecasted 130 million due to be shipped by the start 2017. Prasad said that the accelerated surge in sales was due to people becoming more digitally literate, enabling them to make video calls to friends or family in distant parts of the country, a trend he said the government would like to push.
