This is the conclusion reached by Nielsen analysts, assessing the level of smartphone penetration in emerging markets, including Russia.
But the main opening of the report is in another. According to Nielsen, China is the only market of the BRICS countries where smartphones dominate the mobile handset market in terms of the number of devices. Two”thirds of the subscribers of the Celestial Empire use “smart phones”.
By contrast, feature phones (i.e. gadgets without a touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard or operating system) still dominate the markets of India and Russia, occupying 80% and 51% of the markets, respectively.
As for Brazil, everything is not so simple there: 44% of the “Latin” market accounts for feature backgrounds, 36% for smartphones and 21% for “multimedia” devices (by them Nielsen understands cell phones with a touch screen or QWERTY, but without an operating system).
Unfortunately, the data presented by the analytical company is somewhat outdated today. They date back to the first half of 2012. Nevertheless, it seems to us that they fully reflect the current situation.
The data was collected by means of a questionnaire. In each country, 3,900 mobile subscribers aged 16 and over were surveyed. In Brazil, however, only 1,000 subscribers were interviewed. As for China, the survey did not affect residents of agricultural areas of the country, so the high level of smartphone penetration could be greatly overestimated.