Xiaomi strengthens India smartphone market lead in Q3

Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Micromax and OPPO are the top five smartphone suppliers in India in the third quarter of 2018, according to research firm IDC.
India smartphone market share Q3 2018Smartphone makers shipped 42.6 million units of smartphone, registering 9.1 percent year-on-year growth. Both smartphones and feature phones contributed 50 percent to the overall mobile phone market in India.

China-based Xiaomi increased its Indian smartphone market share to 27.3 percent in Q3 2019 from 23.5 percent in Q3 2017.

Samsung India’s Indian smartphone market share fell to 22.6 percent in Q3 2018 from 23.5 percent in Q3 2017.

Vivo increased its Indian smartphone market share to 10.3 percent in Q3 2018 as compared with 8.5 percent in Q3 2017.

Micromax, which made a surprise re-entry into the top 5 position of the Indian smartphone market, grabbed the fourth rank. Micromax, due to its smartphone deals with certain state governments, has 6.9 percent share in Q3 2018 as against 4.3 percent in Q3 2017.

OPPO India’s Indian smartphone market share fell to 6.7 percent in Q3 2018 as against 7.9 percent in Q3 2017.

Companies such as Huawei, Sony, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Nokia, among others, did not make much impact in India.

Online booms

Online exclusive smartphone deals driven by brands such as Xiaomi, Honor, Realme, Asus, OnePlus, etc. resulted in quarter-on-quarter growth of 37 percent, taking the online share to 39 percent, said Upasana Joshi, associate research manager, Channel Research, IDC India.

India’s feature phone market registered shipments of 43.1 million units, registering 2.1 percent growth.

Shipments for JioPhone, a 4G feature phone, from Reliance Industries (RIL) fell as the Indian vendor focused on clearing existing channel inventory.

India’s 2G feature phone market grew by 19.6 percent quarter on quarter after declining for the previous two quarters – driven by Samsung, HMD, and Lava.