In the first 3 months of 2018, India spotted 11% growth in smartphone shipment. Within the Q1 2018, 30 million units have already been shipped to India. According to the IDC research firm, that’s the highest of all time. FYI, almost 27 million units were shipped in India in the Q1 2017.
Let’s take a look at the latest IDC data analysis. Xiaomi is dominating the smartphone market with 30.3% share which is followed by Samsung (25.1%), Oppo (7.4%), Vivo (6.7%), and Transsion (4.6%).
Although, the smartphone market remained consistent compared to the previous quarter. Almost 85 million phones were shipped in the Q1 2018. Between those 85 million, 55.2 million were feature phones.
IDC declared “Xiaomi maintained its lead in the smartphone market for 2nd quarter in a row with further expansion in the offline channel and popularity of its models such as Redmi 5A and Redmi Note 5. Various other brands, on the other hand, used the online channel to expand their share in the market, notable amongst those being Honor, iVOOMi, and Tenor.”
IDC also included that the online platforms were considered for expediting 36% smartphone sales in the March quarter which is marginally more than the 34.2% in the Q4 of 2017.
According to IDC India Senior Market Analyst Mr. Jaipal Singh, we can expect more growth in the smartphone market with the admiration and focus on the budget smartphone segment. The growth will also get a boost by the ecosystem of making devices more affordable along with finance schemes and belligerent offline augmentation.
According to the IDC’s report, India encountered a 68% year-on-year growth of the premium smartphone segment (USD 600/INR 40,000 and above). There is a huge contribution from Samsung Galaxy S9 series to the growth of the premium segment. OnePlus maintained their 50% market share in the INR 27,000-40,000 segment with the help of their popular OnePlus 5 and 5T smartphones.
According to Upasana Joshi, Senior Market Analyst at IDC India, the offline smartphone retailers always fight with the cut in their commissions to absorb the effect of price hikes. She also said, “Having said that, these partners will have to chalk out a way to mitigate some of the additional burdens through special offers or schemes to the end buyer.”
She also mentioned that the Indian government recently increased the import duty on PCBs, camera modules, and connectors which will definitely put the pressure on the smartphone brands till the time they opt to CKD (Complete Knock Down) type of manufacturing to disregard the effect. She also added, “This will increase the challenges for smaller companies even more.”
Surprisingly the market of 4G feature phones in India grew at more than 50% quarter-on-quarter. Certainly, the award goes to Jio Phone.
Moreover, Reliance Industries (Jio) maintained their 38.4% market share of the feature phone in the March quarter. Jio’s huge market share is followed by Samsung (10.4%), Transsion (7.9%), Lava (6%) and Micromax (4.7%).