New Delhi, May 16 (IANS): Mobile handset shipments in India recorded a 25 per cent year-on-year (YoY) decline in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019 while feature phone shipments saw a noticeable decline of around 49 per cent and smartphones recorded a 10 per cent growth, a new report said on Thursday.

According to CyberMedia Research (CMR), 4G contributed to 66 per cent mobile handset shipments while 2G accounted for 34 per cent.

Chinese handset brands continued to dominate the mobile handset leaderboard while the market share of Indian brands dipped to 30 per cent during Q1 2019.

"The overall market decline was on expected lines for Q1 2019. The above industry average stock build-up in the end of previous quarter resulted in lower shipments. Also, the recent change in e-commerce rules in India impacted the online dependent players," Narinder Kumar, Lead Analyst-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, said in a statement.

During Q1 2019, Samsung topped the overall mobile handset leaderboard with a 22 per cent market share, followed by Xiaomi with 16 per cent and LYF at 13 per cent.

"It is interesting to note that shipments of top five smartphone players accounted for 83 per cent of total smartphone shipments in Q1 2019. The hypercompetitive nature of the smartphone market saw intense competition, resulting in sequential decline by 10-12 per cent for both Xiaomi and Samsung shipments," said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR.

The Indian smartphone market saw the affordable smartphone segment (Rs 7,000- Rs 25,000) growing by 75 per cent while the value for money segment (less than Rs 7,000) experienced a 22 per cent growth.

The premium segment (Rs 25,001- Rs 50,000) grew at a flat 2.4 per cent YoY.