Vivo has become the second largest smartphone brand in India beating Samsung during the fourth quarter of 2019, according to IDC.

Vivo also became the leader in the offline retail channel, ahead of Samsung on the back of multiple price drops across major models. Due to the continuous release of more techy, stylish, and advanced vivo phones, vivo easily strengthened its position in the smartphone market for mid-range phones.

Samsung slipped to third position in Indian smartphone business, registering 15.4 percent decline in Q4. The refreshed Galaxy As series was unable to sustain its momentum owing to a delay in launch time and a gap in phasing out the older Galaxy A.

Xiaomi achieved shipment of 43.6 million units in 2019, with a growth of 9.2 percent. The Redmi Note 7 Pro and Redmi 6A were the highest shipped devices in 2019. Xiaomi smartphone shipment rose 15.9 percent — assisted by the introduction of Redmi Note 8 Pro/8A/Note 8/8 phone series in India.

OPPO, another Chinese brand, has reached the fourth position with growth of 88.4 percent on the back of its affordable A series and successful Reno 2 series.

Realme slipped to the fifth position despite achieving 74.1 percent growth. It continued to be in the second slot in the online channel with a market share of 18.1 percent in 2019, up by 10 percentage points as compared to 2018.

Huawei and its Honor brand did not reach the top five position despite aggressively pushing for share with innovative smartphones.

India’s smartphone makers shipped 152.5 million units in 2019, registering growth of 8 percent. India became the second largest smartphone market in 2019 after China. The overall mobile phone market, with annual shipments of 282.9 million units, declined 12.3 percent in 2019 due to fewer 4G feature phones.

“The online growth momentum continued through the year with a record share of 41.7 percent in 2019, growing by 18.4 percent annually,” says Upasana Joshi, associate research manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

Smartphone ASPs stood at US$163 in 2019, registering 2.8 percent growth with the sub-US$200 segment accounting for 79 percent of the market.

The mid-range segment of US$200-500 accounted for the growth of 55.2 percent, accounting for 19.3 percent of the smartphone market.

Vivo is the leader in the mid-premium smartphone segment with 28 percent share in 2019. OnePlus has 20.2 percent share.

Apple surpassed Samsung in the premium (US$500+) segment for the leadership position with market share of 47.4 percent in 2019.