Chinese smartphone brands in India now account for a staggering 66 percent of all phones sold in the country, revealed a recent report by Counterpoint Research. Smartphones in India have been undergoing an insurgence from brands in China for a while now, and it has been quite some time since Indian OEMs have been pushed out of business, or deep into the shadows. As of Q1 2019, the Chinese brands accounted a further increase in market share, with the likes of Oppo and Vivo majorly contributing to the overall growth.
According to the report, Xiaomi still leads the smartphone market in India with 29 percent market share in Q1 2019, down from 31 percent in Q1 2018. Samsung, the once-invincible leader of smartphones in India, saw their market share decline further to now account for 23 percent of all smartphones sold in the country. Vivo is now the third highest selling smartphone brand in India, witnessing a 119 percent YoY growth in smartphone sales volumes and accounting for 12 percent of the Indian smartphone market. Oppo and Realme, the two sub-brands, held 7 percent each in Q1 2019, bringing up the top five smartphone brands in India in terms of sales.
The growth of Vivo, Oppo and Realme come at a time when the overall Indian smartphone industry saw a decline in the pace of growth, increasing only 4 percent YoY in terms of smartphone sales. While Samsung’s smartphone market share has considerably declined in recent times with the likes of Xiaomi and Vivo stepping up into an aggressive expansion phase, the Korean electronics giant saw a significant YoY rise in feature phone sales, up from 10 percent to 15 percent in Q1 2019.
India is believed to be one of the only large volume electronics markets that still offers good scope of growth for companies in the smartphone space, as expansion scope in China and USA has dried up due to market saturation. We expect this pace to continue through 2019 with Chinese brands leading the pack, unless a dramatic shakeup ensues.
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