New Delhi, Apr 21 (IANS): As the market becomes more competitive amid aggressive 4G rollout and more people adopting digital payment methods, smartphones in India will represent 62 per cent of all mobile phones sales in 2018, market research firm Gartner predicted on Friday.

The rise of digital currency is bringing a new use case for smartphones, which, in turn, is set to trigger higher demands for smartphones.

This opens the opportunity for service providers to launch mobile wallet solution or even vendors to launch their exclusive mobile payment solutions like Android Pay or Apple Pay to build an ecosystem, Gartner said.

"India represents the largest opportunity because it is the second-largest mobile phone market after China," said Anshul Gupta, Research Director, Gartner.

Ever rising competition from Chinese manufacturers has not only troubled top local brands such as Micromax, Intex, Lava and Karbonn mobile but also resulted in a decrease in smartphone market share for global leader Samsung in India.

Leading global vendors Samsung and Apple have made exclusive plans to grow their shares in the market.

Gionee, Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and Lenovo, etc. have committed big investments to exploit the growth opportunity, the report added.

"With an exclusive focus on the market from the device manufacturers, we expect more customised smartphones to come to market and remain key to win in this highly competitive market," Gupta said.