Smartphone and Consumer Electronics Research in India: Intenders, Owners and Switchers
Smartphone consumer research in India: screen intenders vs owners, price bands, brand switching, MaxDiff feature trade-offs, channel and IDC 2025 data.
In shortSmartphone consumer research in India starts by separating intenders (planning to buy in a set window) from owners, then splitting both by price band. Screen on current phone, planned budget and channel, and trade features off with MaxDiff. Hercules Works reaches smartphone-using members by city, age, gender and NCCS, with a screener in the survey. First-time smartphone buyers are largely outside an app panel.
Contents
- Owners Tell You What Happened. Intenders Tell You What Is Next
- Intenders, Recent Buyers and Owners
- A Seven-Question Screener
- KPIs and the Question Bank
- India Facts From IDC
- Worked Example: Intenders in Three Price Bands
- What to Ask Any Panel Provider
- Running This Study on Hercules
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources and further reading
- Related guides
Owners Tell You What Happened. Intenders Tell You What Is Next
Almost every respondent on an app panel already owns a smartphone, so "smartphone users" is not a useful audience. The useful splits are who plans to buy soon, at what price, and from where. This guide covers those screeners, a brand-switching and feature study design, IDC's 2025 India data, a worked cost example and what to ask a panel provider.
Intenders, Recent Buyers and Owners
| Audience | Rule | Questions it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Intenders | Plan to buy a new phone within 6 or 12 months | Consideration set, budget, trigger, channel |
| Recent buyers | Bought in the past 3 or 6 months | What they chose, why, what they rejected |
| Owners, no plan | Own a phone, no plan to change | Satisfaction, brand loyalty, what would make them move |
Do not mix them in one base. An owner's stated brand loyalty and an intender's shortlist answer different questions. Keep price bands separate too, since a buyer under ₹15,000 and a buyer over ₹50,000 weigh different things. The panel is app-based, so a person buying a first smartphone after a feature phone is mostly outside it.
A Seven-Question Screener
| # | Question | Options | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which brand is your main phone? | Your brand list, plus other | Quota for brand switching |
| 2 | About what did you pay for it? | Price bands you define in rupees | Assign the current band |
| 3 | How long have you used it? | Under 6 months; 6 to 12 months; 1 to 2 years; 2 to 3 years; over 3 years | Upgrade-cycle base |
| 4 | When do you plan to buy your next phone? | Within 3 months; 3 to 6; 6 to 12; later; no plan | Intender if within your window |
| 5 | What is the most you would spend? | The same price bands | Quota by planned band |
| 6 | Who pays? | Myself; family; employer; EMI or finance | Decision-maker check |
| 7 | Which of these is your own work? | Phone retail or repair; telecom; marketing or research; none of these | Any except "none" screens out |
Show price bands as rupee ranges your respondents recognise, not dollar bands. Ask where they would buy as a separate question for intenders (see below).
KPIs and the Question Bank
| KPI | How to ask | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Consideration set | Which brands would you consider for your next phone? | Multi-select, rotated |
| Brand switching | Current brand against intended brand | Cross-tab; share staying, leaving, arriving |
| Feature trade-offs | Which of these matters most and least? | MaxDiff on 8 to 30 features |
| Price ceiling | Most you would pay; band you would never go above | Single choice by band |
| Channel | Where will you buy: marketplace, brand's online store, brand store, multi-brand store? | Single choice, then reason |
| Upgrade trigger | What would make you change now? | Multi-select plus open text |
For features such as camera, battery, charging speed, display, storage, 5G, software update years, design and brand, MaxDiff forces a choice, so every feature does not come out "important". Keep the list to what you can actually change or advertise.
India Facts From IDC
IDC reported India smartphone shipments of 152 million units in 2025, up 0.5% on 2024, with the average selling price up 8% to a record US$282 (IDC, 16 February 2026). It said offline channels took 57% of shipments, up from 51% in 2024, while online fell from 49% to 43%.
By price, IDC put the sub-US$100 segment at 16% of 2025 shipments, US$100-200 at 41%, US$200-400 at 26%, US$400-600 at 5%, US$600-800 at 5% and US$800 and above at 7%. It said it expects volumes to contract in 2026, with premium demand and finance-led purchases supporting value.
Three design lessons follow. Quota across price bands, because the mid-price mass segment and the premium end behave differently. Do not assume online buying is rising; ask by band. And ask about EMI or finance, which IDC links to premium demand. We did not find a current published India upgrade-cycle figure we could verify, so measure it with the screener question on months since purchase.
Worked Example: Intenders in Three Price Bands
Illustrative only. You want 200 intenders in each of three planned price bands, 600 in all.
| Planned band | Assumed incidence | Completes | People screened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget | 20% | 200 | 200 ÷ 0.20 = 1,000 |
| Mid | 12% | 200 | 200 ÷ 0.12 = 1,667 |
| Premium | 8% | 200 | 200 ÷ 0.08 = 2,500 |
Run separately, the bands would need 5,167 screeners. In practice one screener fills all three at once. Incidence is explained in the any-audience guide; these figures are placeholders, not our panel's rates. At 200 per band, a 50% share has a margin of error of about 6.9 points (1.96 × √(0.25 ÷ 200)). Premium intenders are the hardest cell: ask for a feasibility count there first.
What to Ask Any Panel Provider
Generic questions on verification, duplicates, billing and languages are in the any-audience guide. For phones, also ask:
- Can you give a feasibility count for intenders in my price band, and for premium intenders in particular?
- Can the survey record the current brand and months since purchase, and quota on planned price band?
- Which share of your members are feature-phone owners or first-time smartphone buyers? If none, state that limit in the report.
- Can the instrument run MaxDiff on 8 or more features?
Running This Study on Hercules
A three-band intender study of 600 suits an online survey of smartphone users; at list price it costs:
| Step | Plan | Responses | Price per response | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test the screener | Free | 30 | ₹0 | ₹0 |
| Small pilot | Plus | 100 | ₹150 | ₹15,000 |
| Main study (3 bands x 200) | Pro | 600 | ₹120 | ₹72,000 |
Panel facts, verification and the subset caveat are on panel methodology; plan prices are on pricing. Screened-out respondents do not count towards a response bundle.
Frequently asked questions
How do I research smartphone buyers in India?
Split intenders, recent buyers and owners. Screen on current phone, planned budget and purchase window, quota by price band and city, and report each audience separately.
Why use MaxDiff for phone features?
People rate every feature as important. MaxDiff makes them choose the most and least important from small sets, which ranks features and shows real trade-offs.
How big is the India smartphone market?
IDC reported shipments of 152 million units in 2025, up 0.5% on 2024, with a record average selling price of US$282.
Do Indians buy phones online or in stores?
IDC said offline held 57% of 2025 shipments, up from 51%, and online 43%. Ask your own buyers by price band, since the split varies.
How long do Indians keep a phone?
We did not find a current published figure we could verify. Ask months since purchase in your screener and report it by price band.
Can I reach first-time smartphone buyers?
Mostly not on an app panel, since members already use a smartphone. Those buyers need offline fieldwork.
Sources and further reading
- Telecom Subscriptions Reports (monthly) — Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
- SuperJ panel methodology — how the respondents behind Hercules Works studies are verified
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