Bigger the better: TMI survey

Of the 25 most viewed handsets in India, 12 were from Indians players as compared to 13 from global brands.

In a span of around six months, the market has been flooded with mobile phones having five inch or bigger display screens. This also reflects in 'The Handset Hotlist Survey' of June, which was conducted by The Mobile Indian.

As per the survey, which is based on a study of online preferences of over one million people who visited the website (www.themobileindian.com) in June this year, 12 out of 25 mobile phones have five inch or bigger screens. The list includes five handsets of Micromax, four of Samsung and one each of Karbonn, Xolo and Spice. Interestingly, as many as eight smartphones in the list have displays bigger than four inches but smaller than five inches.

However, this increasing interest for larger screen-based handsets was not an overnight affair.

In our January 2012 survey, the average screen size of the smartphones that people were searching was 2.9 inches. In the month of June 2012, it was 3.5 inches, while in January this year, it was 4.1 inches and finally, last month, it jumped to 4.5 inches.

Commenting on the survey, a spokesperson of The Mobile Indian says, "Most of the handset players, especially Indian players, are launching smartphones with large real estate and it seems like they are the ones who are offering multiples options to consumers in terms of large screen sizes and that too at budget prices."

Of late, Xolo has come out with decent smartphones at competitive prices but never more than one handset from Xolo made it to our list. However, this time three handsets from the maker made it to the Handset Hotlist.

Commenting on the development, the spokesperson says, "Xolo in terms of grabbing consumer's attention has been on the fringe for the last couple of months. Reasons being, launches were not happening at regular intervals and even the availability of the smartphones was not uniform. The company has addressed these issues and is now in the reckoning."

Out of the 25 most searched handsets, seven each were from Micromax and Samsung, three each from Sony and Xolo, two from Nokia and one each from Karbonn, Spice and Apple.

Top 25 Handset Hotlist for July-2013
Rank June	Last May	Change	Model	Relative Score	Price (in Rs.)	OS	Screen Size
1	na	new	Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3	100	28,500	Android	6.3
2	na	new	Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8	72	23,500	Android	5.8
3	9	6	Nokia Lumia 520	64	9,300	Windows Phone 8	4
4	7	3	Samsung Galaxy S Duos	64	11,000	Android	4
5	na	new	Micromax A88 Canvas Music	59	8,400	Android	4.5
6	8	2	Samsung Galaxy Young	59	7,500	Android	3.2
7	3	-4	Micromax Canvas 3D A115	58	9,200	Android	5
8	6	-2	Samsung Galaxy S4	58	38,000	Android	5
9	4	-5	Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos I9082	58	18,500	Android	5
10	5	-5	Karbonn Titanium S5	56	11,000	Android	5
11	1	-10	Micromax Canvas HD A116	54	13,500	Android	5
12	10	-2	Micromax Canvas Doodle A111	52	11,500	Android	5.3
13	na	new	Xolo Q1000	50	13,000	Android	5
14	18	4	Micromax A110Q Canvas 2 Plus	39	10,000	Android	5
15	11	-4	Micromax Canvas Viva A72	37	6,400	Android	5
16	17	1	Sony Xperia E	36	8,300	Android	3.5
17	14	-3	Micromax Ninja A27	31	3,300	Android	3.5
18	23	5	Sony Xperia U	27	12,000	Android	3.5
19	13	6	Apple iPhone 5	25	43,990	iOS	4
20	22	2	Sony Xperia J	25	13,500	Android	4
21	12	-9	Samsung Galaxy Win	25	16,300	Android	4.7
22	na	new	Xolo Q800	24	10,000	Android	4.5
23	na	new	Xolo X910	23	9,999	Android	4.3
24	na	new	Spice Mobiles Stellar Horizon Mi 505 Pro	22	8,500	Android	5
25	20	-5	Nokia Lumia 620	22	14,000	Windows Phone 8	3.8

The Relative Score, which was introduced recently, indicates the popularity of each handset vis-à-vis the leader. This month, there was close competition from position No. 3 to 10 for grabbing consumer interest. So much so, that slot numbers 3 and 4; 5 and 6; and 7, 8 and 9 have the same relative scores.

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