Riding on new launches and series of summer sales with heavy discounts on Amazon .in and Flipkart.com, smartphone shipments in India through online channels increased 26% year-on-year (YoY) in April to June quarter of 2019, claims Counterpoint’s latest market report.
Flipkart was the busiest platform in Q2 2019, accounting for 58% of all online smartphone sales, followed by Amazon (29%) and Mi.com (12%).
In addition to the summer sales by established online platforms, OEMs also pushed products through their own online stores, such as Xiaomi selling Redmi and Mi phones on Mi.com.
“The growth of Xiaomi and Realme and the focus of Samsung on online channels, with its Galaxy M-series, drove the shipments in the online segment," Anshika Jain, Research Analyst at Counterpoint said in a press statement.
The mid-segment ( ₹15,000 to 20,000) was the fastest-growing price band in the online segment with Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 Pro emerging as the top sellers.
In online shipments, Xiaomi (46%) enjoys the lion’s share of the market, pitting Oppo’s sub brand Realme (17%) and Samsung (11%) by a distance. Asus (6%) and Huawei (4%) are the other two vendors in the top five. The top five brands accounted for 84% of overall online market.
Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, explains that smartphone vendors and even online channels are now diversifying their channel/platform strategy to expand their reach. For instance, “Amazon recently infused US$404 million in its India business and is also investing heavily in Future Retail group to strengthen its offline footprint in the Indian market," Pathak adds.
The researchers are very upbeat about the online smartphone market, and estimate that it will get a strong push from all the major brands during the upcoming festival season. Also, the focus is going to be higher on handsets with higher ASPs this time as they pack in more features and will get them more traction among buyers.
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