Top 10 smartphone trends to watch out for in India in 2018

India's smartphone market is expected to grow further in 2018 driven by demand for upgrades, and is likely to see some new trends such as the first few models of dual display screens while bezel less displays may find their way into the affordable segment. 

Smartphone players will find themselves as a more integral part of India's telecom growth story as more data and voice services are likely to get bundled. Local manufacturing is also set to get a leg up next year. 

• Bezel less, dual front and back camera devices under $100-150 and expansive AI and face recognition to become popular

• Initial wave of dual displays, fingerprint scanner through glass to be seen

• Mobile wallet players to tie up with OEMs to ensure upfront value of smartphones remains low, driving affordability

• Internet users to cross 500 million driven by Rel Jio and featurephone users using internet

• Local refurbished and second hand market expected to grow by 30% next year

• Local manufacturing to account for 90% of shipments, components like PCBA to get domestic push

• Consumers to prefer memory capacity of 64GB, with 4 GB RAM

• Domestic manufacturing to move up to assembly of completely knocked down devices from semi-knocked down phones