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This story is from December 18, 2017

Photos, videos, TV shows push Indian smartphone memory sizes up sharply

High-resolution photos and videos taken on smartphones and download of TV shows are pushing up sharply the demand in India for more storage space on phones, while bigger and higher resolution screens and applications like video calling are increasing the need for higher RAM (random access memory).
Photos, videos, TV shows push Indian smartphone memory sizes up sharply
BENGALURU: High-resolution photos and videos taken on smartphones and download of TV shows are pushing up sharply the demand in India for more storage space on phones, while bigger and higher resolution screens and applications like video calling are increasing the need for higher RAM (random access memory).
The average size of internal storage in an Indian smartphone rose to 28 GB in the third quarter (July-September) of 2017.
It was only 12 GB in the first quarter (January-March) of 2016, says technology market research firm Counterpoint Research. It is expected to rise to 40 GB by the end of 2018. However, it’s still much below the global average of over 40 GB currently; the latter is expected to rise to 60 GB by the end of next year.
“Camera has been the centre of marketing everywhere and so is multimedia. So high-resolution images and video captures are the biggest driving factors for storage, alongside the ever increasing size of OS (operating system) and applications,” Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint, told TOI.
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An executive of a smartphone company, who did not want to be named, said a big driver of storage is also the downloading of TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime onto phones. He said users download them wherever free Wi-Fi is available, including many offices. Netflix and Amazon both enabled downloading some months ago.
Jackie Bao, director of product marketing in the $18-billion storage company Western Digital, said emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) in mobile apps will enable significantly more immersive experiences and further drive storage and RAM demand in the years to come.

RAM, 4G-LTE capability, and storage size are today the three top-most features in a smartphone that consumers in India want, Counterpoint said. These are followed by camera and processor. RAM demand, too, is rising steeply. RAM is the memory that stores data and machine code when an application is active. The average RAM in smartphone shipments in Q3 of 2017 in India was 2.5 GB, up from 1.4 GB in Q1 of 2016.
“Bigger higher resolution screens are the key driver along with advanced applications – games, browsing and video calling. Expect more in future with AI-based apps and AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality) apps,” Shah said. Bao said globally 70% of smartphone users watch TV and video on their phones. And higher the resolution of TV and video, the more the RAM required.
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In RAM, the Indian average is higher than the global one of 2.1 GB. Shah said it is the Chinese and Indian brands that are driving higher RAM. “Globally, outside India and China, Samsung and Apple are strong and they have on an average lower RAM per phone,” he said.
In internal storage, smartphones with 64 GB accounted for 19% of overall shipments in Q3 of this year, up from just 3% in the corresponding period last year. And those with 32 GB accounted for 23%, up from 14% a year before. The dominant capacity has been 16 GB for close to two years, but its contribution fell sharply to 35% in Q3, compared to 40% in Q2 of this year.
“Xiaomi was the top contributor to the growth of 64 GB internal memory during Q3 2017. The high memory band of 128 GB and above that had negligible presence a year ago now has a 0.66% share, driven by premium brands like Apple, OnePlus and Huawei,” Counterpoint said. About 82% of the sales of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, the top-selling smartphone in India was of the 64 GB version.
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