Xiaomi Beats Samsung To Retain #1 Position In India; Realme Grew 473% In 2019!

The Indian Smartphone Market finished the year 2019 with 8% growth in the smartphone shipment reaching a total of 148 million smartphones being shipped thanks to the end-of-year surge due to Diwali sales by online channels.

Canalys Analyst Madhumita Chaudhary, “Online sales have been a silver lining, with vendors boosting sell-in to online retailers Flipkart and Amazon via exclusive tie-ups. However, relying exclusively on online channels proved to be a double-edged sword, especially for Realme, which has seen its sell-in fall as online sales slow after the festive season.” 

According to Chaudhary, the Indian Smartphone Market took a sprint in the last quarter of the year.

Who topped the Indian Smartphone Market Charts in 2019? 

The Chinese electronics company, Xiomi lead the year and topped the market with 29% market share at 42.9 million shipments. The sales were seen with a decrease of 1% compared to the year 2018.

Samsung came in the second position with a shipment of 32.3 million but the annual growth of the sales declined by 7%. The sales went from 25% in Q4 of 2018 to 22% in Q4 of 2019.

Will Samsung have to pull up their socks in 2020?

The statistics show Vivo coming at Samsung like a hungry shark and is expected to overtake Samsung this year. Though Vivo finished third it had a tremendous run in 2019. Vivo’s full year shipments grew by 72% wherein it shipped 24.7 million smartphones. There was an increase of 7% in the sales as compared to 2018.

Oppo came in 4th position with a sale of 16.1 million smartphones and Real me came in the 5th position with a total of 15.7 million shipments.

Individually, OPPO and Realme increased their annual sales growth by 44% and 473% respectively in 2019, added the report by Canalys.

Apple gave its best performance this year due to its launch of affordable Iphone 11.Apple finished sixth by shipping 2.0million smartphones and saw an annual growth of 200%. The sales increased due to the pricing strategy and effective promotion strategy adopted by the company.

Chinese Companies Taking Over the Indian Smartphone Market in 2020?

Meanwhile the Chinese BBK group, the parent company of Oppo, Vivo and Realme emerged as the best performer by capturing the Indian Smartphone Market by 39% in 2019.

In the Q4 quarter of 2019, the BBK Group had a 42% share in the India smartphone market while Xiaomi had a 29% share.

Canalys expects a 8% growth in the year 2020 in the Indian smartphone market. 

But the vendors will take factors like 2020 budget, Make in India initiative and health of telecom operators into consideration.

“2020 is predicted to be a year of transition in Indian Smartphone Market,” said Canalys Research Analyst, Adwait Mardikar.