Smartphones record strong sales despite slowdown

Demand for smartphones in India does not seem to be falling anytime soon. In the second quarter of 2019, smartphone shipments rose to 36.9 million, up from 32.1 million in the previous quarter, according to International Data Corporation's (IDC) Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, released on Tuesday.

The India smartphone market grew 9.9% year-on-year (YoY) and 14.8% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ).

Chinese vendors, though, still have the lion’s share of the market with Xioami, Vivo, Oppo and Realme cumulatively accounting for over 60% of the Indian smartphone market.

Xiaomi retained the top spot with a 28.3% market share comprising 10.4 million shipment units. However, their market share has fallen from 30.6% in Q1 2019.

On the other hand, main rival Samsung shipped 9.3 million units and increased its market size to 25.3%—up from 7.2 million units and 22.3% market share in Q1 2019. While Xiaomi’s YoY shipment volume grew by 4.8% YoY, Samsung registered a strong YoY growth of 16%.

Online sales contributed majorly to the demand, resulting in an YoY growth of 12.4%. Offline sales grew by 8.5% YoY and were largely driven by new launches by Samsung in the mid-range Galaxy A series, Xiaomi’s growing presence in offline market and Vivo marketing activity during IPL.

“Online channel continued its growth momentum fuelled by multiple new launches, attractive offers and affordability schemes like EMIs/cashbacks,” Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India said in a press statement.

The average selling price (ASP) for smartphones in India in Q2 2019 was $159 and $200 segment accounted for 78% of the handsets in the market. However, people are opening up to the idea of spending more on smartphones—the fastest growing segment was $200-$300 with a YoY growth of 105.2%, while the second fastest growing segment was $400-$600 with YoY growth of 16.3%. OnePlus was the top vendor in this segment with 63.6% market share.

In the premium segment, which includes phones priced above $500, Apple usurped Samsung as the market leader and overall share of 41.2%. This can be largely attributed to the demand for price drop and promotions of iPhone XR. Apple had slashed its price from ₹73,900 to ₹53,900.

The interest in feature phones is finally waning, as their shipments declined 26.3% YoY in 2Q19. A total of 32.4 million feature phones were shipped in the second quarter.

Compared India market, shipments in China plummeted by 6% in the last one year. A total of 97.9 million smartphones were shipped in China in Q2 2019, down from 142 million in Q2 2018, claims IDC.