India registered 109.1 million units of smartphone shipments with a marginal 5.2% annual growth in 2016, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Monday. Chinese players led the pack.

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In the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016, smartphone shipments clocked 25.8 million units -- registering similar volumes as that of 2015 but declining sharply by 20.3% over the previous quarter. 

This was mainly due to a seasonal decline after an all-time high festival quarter and demonetisation in November, which led to relatively lower consumer sales in November and December.

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"Feature phone to smartphone migration has slowed down as prices of smartphones are still quite high for a feature phone user," said Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC.

The share of China-based vendors touched a whopping 46% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016. Their shipments doubled over the same period last year while the share of homegrown vendors slipped to 19%. 

Samsung continued to lead the smartphone market with 25.1% share despite a 13.1% sequential decline in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016. But Samsung`s annual shipments grew 3.2% in 2016, driven majorly by the J-series. 

Xiaomi climbed up to second spot with 10.7% share against 3.3% share in the same period last year. Year-on-year shipments grew threefold while sequential growth was 15.3%. 

Lenovo (including Motorola) slipped to third place as shipments declined 17.4% sequentially in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016 and 14.5% over same quarter of previous year, the report noted. 

OPPO made it to the top five list with 8.6% share. 

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