Xiaomi retains top position; India's smartphone shipments grow 9.9 pct in Q2 2019: IDC

The Indian smartphone market witnessed record shipments of 36.9 million in the second quarter of 2019, registering a growth of 9.9 percent year-on-year (YoY) and 14.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), owing to new launches and affordability schemes, said a new report from the International Data Corporation.

According to the IDC Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, in Q2 2019, the Average Selling Price (ASP) for overall smartphone market stood at USD 159 with 78 percent of the market below USD 200 price segment.  However, the USD 200-300 was the fastest-growing segment with 105.2 percent YoY growth, owing to the innovative and flagship phones introduced by leading Chinese brands including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Redmi.

OnePlus dominated the USD 400- USD 600 segment, the second-fastest-growing segment with 16.3 percent YoY growth in the second quarter with a 63.6 percent share. Well, coming to the premium segment ((USD 500/Rs 35,000 and above), Apple topped the tally with an overall share of 41.2 percent, surpassing South Korea's Samsung.

Top five smartphone brands in India

Witnessing a 4.8 percent year-on-year growth in shipment volume, Chinese brand Xiaomi has consolidated its top position. Though Xiaomi ed the tally, it's market share has fallen from 30.6 percent in the March 2019 quarter to 28.3 percent in Q2 2019.

With 25.3 percent market share and strong YoY growth of 16.6 percent, Samsung grabbed the second spot at the back of newly launched Galaxy A series across low and mid-price segments. Vivo retained the third spot with a 15.1 percent market share, followed by Oppo with a 9.7 percent and Realme with 7.7 percent share in the fourth and fifth spot respectively, in the second quarter.

Despite the efforts towards multi-channel retailing by almost all vendors, the online channel continued its growth momentum fueled by multiple new launches, attractive offers and affordability factors like EMIs or cashback offers. This resulted in YoY growth of 12.4 percent for the online channel with an overall share of 36.8 percent in 2Q19,” says Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

India smartphone market will continue its growth trajectory in the second half of 2019, but the consolidation of the top few brands will continue. This will make it much more challenging for smaller players to find niches of growth," IDC India Research Director (Client Devices and IPDS) Navkendar Singh said.

In the second quarter of 2019, a total of 69.3 million mobile phones were shipped to India, up 7.6 percent over the March 2019 quarter. Online sales accounted for 36.8 percent of the market share in the second quarter of 2019, the report said.