Gurugram, Oct 9 (IANS): Riding on the festive season, 19.1 million smartphones (53 per cent) of the total 36 million smartphones are expected to be sold online during the festive quarter this year, a new report said on Tuesday.

According to the market research firm techARC, this is for the first time that online contribution will be more than the legacy offline sales in the October-December quarter.

A total of $6.36 billion (about Rs 46,890 crore) worth of smartphones will be sold during the period and online sales will contribute 58 per cent or $3.67 billion (nearly Rs 27,094 crore).

"This is a great opportunity for the third-party digital commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, which will take maximum pie of the potential. Nearly 85 per cent of the online smartphone sales will be through such platforms," said Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Principal Analyst, techARC.

According to him, Flipkart has an edge in terms of the choice it offers in terms of models exclusively available with it.

The digital commerce giants have announced huge marketing spend and smartphones are among the "anchoring" products expecting high volume sales during the period, said the report.

"Leading smartphone brands have a number of flagship launches, either announced or in the pipeline to make the maximum of the opportunity. These are mostly available exclusively online," the report added.

Online selling of smartphones is picking up in the entry to mid-ranges markets as well.

"Contrary to earlier trend, people are buying smartphones worth Rs 7,000 and above via online mode. This brings volumes to the online channels," the findings showed.

The traditionally offline only or offline intensive brands like Samsung, OPPO and Vivo have also diluted their channels strategy and have put up select models/range of models online for sales.

Further, some recently launched brands like Xiaomi's Poco and OPPO's Realme have also added to the online action, said the report.