India smartphone shipments hit new record at 36.9 million

• The Indian smartphone industry showed a yearly growth rate of 9.9% and a quarterly growth rate of 14.8%.
• Samsung is showing signs of sales rebound while Xiaomi’s registered its slowest rate of growth in comparison to other companies.
• Oppo, Vivo and Realme record massive growth with Realme registering a yearly growth of 602.4%.

While the global smartphone industry is contracting, the Indian smartphone industry is setting new records. In the second quarter of 2019, smartphone manufacturers shipped 36.9 million smartphones — the highest till date.

This growth is led by Chinese smartphone makers like Oppo, Vivo and Realme, with Xiaomi and Samsung also registering an increase in mobile phone shipments.

Industry analytics provider IDC’s latest report notes smartphone shipments in India grew at a yearly rate of 9.9% and a quarterly growth of 14.8%.

Xiaomi is slowing down

Market leader Xiaomi’s shipments grew by 4.8% but in comparison to other companies in the market, the company’s growth was the slowest among the top 5.

This could either mean that Xiaomi is peaking or its slowing down. In fact, Xiaomi’s overall market share — while still substantial, fell by 1.4 percentage points when compared to the same quarter last year.

Samsung rebounds

Samsung rebounded with an increase of 16.6% in smartphone shipments, going from 8 million units last year to 9.3 million units in this year.

Samsung’s strategy of launching affordable smartphones under the Galaxy M series and slightly more premium smartphones under the Galaxy A series seems to have worked for the South Korean company.

The next two quarters will deliver a more detailed picture about the performance of the Galaxy M series smartphones, which were launched in January this year.

Oppo, Vivo, Realme boom

BBK Electronics’ brands Oppo, Vivo and Realme registered explosive growth in during the second quarter of the current fiscal.

While Oppo registered a yearly growth of 41% in shipments, Vivo was not far behind with a growth of 31.6%. Realme, on the other hand, witnessed an explosive, multi-fold growth of 602.4%, but this is exaggerated by its low starting base.

Nevertheless, BBK Electronics seems to be ruling the Indian smartphone industry, capturing over a third of the total Indian smartphone market share.

Total mobile phone shipments also up

Along with recording a growth of almost 10% in the smartphones category, the Indian market also witnessed a growth of 7.6% in the total mobile phone shipments in the country, which also includes feature phones.

IDC estimates that overall, 69.3 mobile phones were shipped in Q2 2019.

This means that 32.4 million units out of these were feature phones, while the remaining 36.9 million units were smartphones. While IDC has not given a detailed breakdown of the feature phone market share, it is possible that HMD Global’s Nokia and Reliance Jio’s JioPhone contributed to this figure significantly.

Market consolidation on the cards

IDC also reports smaller smartphone makers were the biggest losers in Q2 2019, registering a decline of almost 40% in terms of shipments. The research house suggests that troubles could continue to mount for these companies as the market could witness a consolidation.

"India smartphone market will continue its growth trajectory in the second half of 2019, but the consolidation of top few brands will continue. This will make it much more challenging for smaller players to find niches of growth," IDC India Research Director (Client Devices and IPDS) Navkendar Singh said.

See also:
This is why mobile phones in India will get even cheaper in 2019

In India, smartphones prices have dropped over 16% in a decade: report

Best Samsung phones under ₹ 10,000