BackIndian smartphone market grew by 7.1%, despite global decline: IDC
With 30.6% market share, Xiaomi was the leading smartphone vendor for another successive quarter, shipping a total of 9.8 million units in Q1Realme has managed to break into the top five with 6% market share and 1.9 million unit shipments
PremiumAt a time when global smartphone shipments are dwindling, the Indian market grew by 7.1% annually, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). A total of 32.1 million units were shipped in January to March quarter of 2019, the company claimed in its Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, published on May 13. The global smartphone market fell 6% YoY in Q1 2019.
Other market reports are in agreement with this, even though the numbers vary a little. For instance, as per the Counterpoint report published on April 26, the Indian smartphone market grew by 4% annually. The report attributes this growth to shipment of new products by Samsung and expansion by Xiaomi and Realme in the offline space.
With 30.6% market share, Xiaomi was the leading smartphone vendor for another successive quarter, shipping a total of 9.8 million units in Q1. Samsung remains its biggest rival with 7.2 million units and 22.3% market share, even though the South Korean company’s YoY shipments fell by 4.8%. Vivo was the fastest growing vendor with YoY growth of 108.4% and market share of 13%, up from 6.7% a year ago. Barring Samsung, all the vendors in the top five are from China, accounting for slightly over 56% of the market alone. The total market share of Chinese companies was not shared by IDC. But according to the Counterpoint report, mentioned earlier, the overall market share of Chinese vendors in Q1 was 66%.
Oppo’s subsidiary company Realme, that was established in Q2 2018, has managed to break into the top five with 6% market share and 1.9 million unit shipments. The parent company is only slightly ahead of it with 7.6% market share and 2.4 million shipments, growing at 9.7% YoY.
The new e-commerce rules by the government, which restricted e-commerce companies from selling products exclusively or from having equity stake in seller accounts, didn’t slow down the online market.
“Despite the government’s new e-commerce rules, online channels managed to sustain their pace, registering 19.6% YoY growth in Q1. Fuelled by attractive offers and new launches by vendors like Xiaomi, Samsung, Realme, and Huawei, online sales reached 40.2% of the market," said Upasana Joshi , associate research manager, Client Devices, IDC India, in an official press statement.
In the premium segment, which includes smartphones available at $500 and above, Samsung has pipped Apple as the leader with 36% share in Q1 2019, after the launch of the Galaxy S10 smartphones. However, the OnePlus 6T was the highest selling smartphone in the premium segment in the first quarter.
Feature phones still account for half of the total mobile phone shipments with 32.3 million units, however, interest in them is waning. Not only did the overall shipments of feature phones fell by 42% annually, but the 4G enabled feature phones, which were launched with a lot of hype last year, also declined by 50%.
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