Xiaomi has retained its dominance when it comes to the shipment of smartphones to India in the second quarter of 2018, even as the smartphone market in the country saw a healthy growth of 20 percent in the time frame, a report by market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has said. Xiaomi shipped 29.7 percent of the total 33.5 million devices, followed by Samsung at 23.9 percent, Vivo at 12.6 percent and Oppo at 7.6 percent in the quarter. IDC believes that this is the result of a string of online exclusive launches and strong shipments by offline vendors on the back of promotional activities and channel schemes.
“The market is seeing rapid consolidation at the top end, as the top five vendors made up 79 percent of the smartphone market in 2Q18, marginalizing smaller brands,” Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, said. Xiaomi contributed more than 56 percent of the shipments in online space, while 33 percent of its shipments went through offline channels. In the online segment, Huawei (and Honor) climbed to the second position with an all-time high of 8 percent share.
“Huawei has had a stellar quarter worldwide moving into the second position, toppling Apple. In India, with a refreshed focus it has been able to grow its share in the online space in the last two quarters, on the back of several new launches across price segments. IDC believes Huawei should be seen as a serious long-term player in India market with all the ingredients to challenge Xiaomi and Samsung,” Joshi added.
Other online-focused vendors with online-exclusive launches were OnePlus (OnePlus 6), Realme (Realme1) and Asus (Zenfone Max Pro series), all of which led to an annual growth of 44 percent — taking the online share to 36 percent of the smartphone market. The offline segment growth was driven by Vivo which had strong shipments during the quarter. The premium-end of the market grew almost two times year-over-year (YoY) mainly due to the strong shipments of Samsung Galaxy S9 series and OnePlus 6, with OnePlus surpassing Apple to be the second biggest player in the segment with a share of 21 percent in the second quarter.
The feature phone market shipped 44 million units registering a YoY growth of 29 percent. Reliance Jio remained the top vendor in the overall feature phone market.
Xiaomi registered its highest-ever shipments in a single quarter. The vendor’s shipments grew 10 percent sequentially and grew more than two-fold annually. Its four smartphone models that captured the top four slots in top models ranking are: Redmi 5A, Redmi Note 5 Pro, Redmi Note 5 and Redmi 5, together accounting for 26 percent of overall smartphone shipments. Samsung remained at the second position in the smartphone market with a 21 percent YoY growth, thanks to its Galaxy J6 smartphone. The brand continues to see strong shipments of Galaxy J7 Nxt, Galaxy J2 (2017) and J2 (2018).
Vivo reclaimed the third spot as it registered 18 percent YoY growth in the quarter. OPPO slipped to the fourth spot, but registered a 15 percent YoY growth in shipments. Transsion continued to be at the fifth position. Its offline-focused Tecno brand grew by 26 percent followed by itel with 14 percent QoQ growth. The online-exclusive brand Infinix grew by 45 percent, registering an overall 53 percent YoY growth.
Intext graphics: IDC