Samsung lost second position in India smartphone market

India smartphone market has become the second-largest smartphone market, reaching 158 million shipments in 2019 with 7 percent growth.
Smartphone customers on 4G networkIndia has surpassed the United States for the first time on an annual level, according to the latest research from Counterpoint.

Samsung lost its #2 position in the Indian smartphone market — for the first time in its history.

Xiaomi grew 7 percent in Q4 2019 and 5 percent in 2019 driven by expansion in offline channels and the strong performance of its Redmi Note series.

India is now the biggest market for Xiaomi, surpassing its home market, China, in 2019. The growth rate has declined to single-digit as Xiaomi is now serving a much larger installed base in India.

Vivo grew 76 percent in 2019 and 134 percent in Q4 2019 driven by good performance of its budget segment series. Vivo captured the second spot for the first time in India’s smartphone market.

Samsung shipments remained almost flat in Q4, while recording 5 percent drop in 2019. Samsung shipments were driven by its upgraded A and M series (A50s, A30s, M30s and A20s). This is the first time Samsung transitioned to a completely new portfolio targeting different channels (offline with A series and online with M series).

OPPO shipments almost doubled in Q4 2019, due to demand for its budget segment device A5s and the good performance of its recently launched devices A9 2020 and A5 2020 in the offline segment. OPPO is aggressively moving towards higher price points with the launch of the Reno series.

Realme grew 255 percent in India in 2019 — driven by an aggressive go-to-market strategy that involved launching several industry-first features with a strong design language. Realme also made an entry into the premium segment with its X2 Pro device.

Apple was one of the fastest-growing brands in Q4 2019 driven by multiple price cuts on its XR device, thanks to local manufacturing in India.