India is now slowly but surely warming up to the 4G revolution, and Apple or Samsung is not the leading vendor in this niche!
Xiaomi, the Chinese handset company which has taken the world by storm as they became world’s 3rd largest handset vendor is now the number 1 vendor for selling 4G handsets in India. They have overtaken both Apple and Samsung.
As per reports by Cyber Media Research, for the month of January, 2015, Xiaomi dominated the 4G handsets market by capturing whooping 30%, compared to only 23.8% by Apple. Samsung was at distant 3rd with 12.1%, followed by HTC at 10% and Micromax at 8.3%.
For the last quarter of 2014, Apple was at numero-uno position for 4G handsets, as they captured 45% of the market. Xiaomi was not even in the top three for this period, as HTC with 19% share was at #2 and Samsung with 16% was at #3 position. This data contains sales figure for smartphones and tablets along with data cards.
It would be interesting to analyze 4G sales data for the period February to March, and to know whether Xiaomi was able to maintain this lead for the whole quarter or not.
Xiaomi debuted with 4G devices only in the month of December, and captured 24% share in that month, which extended to 30% in January, 2015. Along with Xiaomi, One Plus also debuted in December, and captured 12% share.
Overall, during October to December, 2014, 10 lakh 4G devices were sold which includes 9,60,000 smartphones, 30,000 tablets and 10,000 data cards.
Interestingly, there are over 20 brands which are right now active in selling 4G devices in India and out of 10 lakh devices sold, only 15% of the sales happened on ecommerce portals.
If we analyze the individual sales figures, then in the Tablet niche, Apple dominated the market with 70.6% share, followed by Lenovo at 28.7%. The report mentions that HP is slowly catching up, and constituted the most of the remaining percentage.
For 4G data cards, there are only two major players right now: Alcatel with 83% was the #1 and Huawei with 27% was at #2. Micromax has started shipping 4G data cards, and they contributed miniscule 0.1%, as per the report.
You can view the complete report here.
[…] But the way Apple has beaten Xiaomi was the most interesting part, as their price revision strategy for 5S, 6 and 6 Plus worked. Last year in March, tech community in India was shocked when Xiaomi overtook Apple in the 4G niche. […]
[…] which has taken the world by storm as they became world’s 3rd largest handset vendor is now the number 1 vendor for selling 4G handsets in India. They have overtaken both Apple and […]
What’s the use if Xiaomi can’t manage the after sales service of their cellphones. It is pathetic to say the least. My Mi3 is with the service center for a month now and they can’t tell when I will get it back or what the issue is.. They keep saying you will receive an sms when the job is done. Having written/ tweeted to their official handles and senior management elicits zero response. and there is no way to track the status of your complaints. Still waiting for their said sms