Chinese phonemaker Xiaomi emerged the top smartphone brand in India in terms of units shipped, with a 29.7 per cent market share at the end of the second quarter of 2018, according to IDC India. Korean major Samsung is at the second spot with 24 per cent market share.
According to IDC India's Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone companies shipped a total of 33.5 million units to India during the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18), resulting in a healthy 20 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth. IDC believes that this is the result of a slew of online exclusive launches and strong shipments by offline heavy vendors on the back of high decibel promotional activities and channel schemes.
The market is, however, seeing rapid consolidation at the top end, as the top five vendors made up 79 per cent of the smartphone market in 2Q18, marginalising smaller brands, says the report.
The feature phone market remained resilient with shipments of 44 million units in 2Q18, seeing a growth of 29 per cent over 2Q17.
Reliance Jio, the telecom operator and the main driver of the 4G feature phone segment with its JioPhone range of phones, remained the top vendor in the overall feature phone market. However, the 4G feature phone market saw a slight decline of 10 per cent QoQ, with 19.0 million units. IDC believes that this drop is due to the JioPhone inventory build-up from 1Q18.
Xiaomi remains the leader in the smartphone market, with a growing offline presence, while maintaining its dominance in the online space. Xiaomi contributed more than 56 per cent of the shipments in the online space, while 33 per cent of its shipments went through offline channels in 2Q18.
The premium end of the market ($500+) grew almost two times year-over-year (YoY) due mainly to continued strong shipments of the Samsung Galaxy S9 series and the OnePlus 6, with OnePlus surpassing Apple to emerge the second biggest player in the $500+ segment with a 21 per cent share in 2Q18.