Xiaomi was the leading smartphone vendor in India for fourth quarter of 2018 and the overall year as well, while Reliance Jio managed to capture the top spot in the feature phone segment, according to Counterpoint Research’s latest report.
India saw close to 330 million units of phones being shipped in all of 2018, out of which smartphones captured 44 per cent of the total volume, says the research firm. But the feature phone segment grew faster than smartphones during the year for the first time ever, and this growth was driven by the Reliance Jio Phone.
Reliance Jio captured 38 per cent of the feature phone segment over the year, according to Counterpoint. Interestingly, in the overall mobile market (combining smartphones and feature phones), Reliance Jio was also the leader with a market share of 21 per cent.
Commenting on the feature phone market, Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint said, “This is the first time the feature phone market grew faster than the smartphone market. India remains the largest market in terms of global feature phone volume. India and Middle East are driving the feature phone market, capturing almost 3/4th of global feature phone sales in 2018.”
In the smartphone market, Xiaomi had its highest shipments in 2018, driving by strong product portfolio and aggressive channel strategy. Xiaomi’s expansion of its offline presence has also helped it make gains in the segment, according to the research firm. The Chinese brand had a 28 per cent market share in 2018, with its Q4 share being 27 per cent.
Samsung was number two in smartphone market for 2018. It had 24 per cent share in the year, and around 22 per cent share in the fourth quarter of 2018.
According to Counterpoint, Samsung still managed to grow faster than the overall smartphone market. Vivo, Oppo, Micromax and others occupied the other spots in India’s top smartphone vendor list for 2018 as a whole.
However in the fourth quarter of 2018, while Xiaomi, Samsung and vivo were the top three players, newcomer Realme made a surprise entry, ahead of Oppo in the list. Realme had a market share of 8 per cent, according to Counterpoint.
Other players who did well in 2018 were Tecno (+221 per cent growth), Honor (+183 per cent growth), Infinix (+146 per cent growth), Nokia HMD (+138 per cent growth) and Asus (+76 per cent growth).
OnePlus with its 58 per cent year-on-year growth was the fastest growing premium smartphone brand, according to Counterpoint. It also notes that the Rs 20,000 – Rs 30,000 segment was the fastest growing segment one (+53 per cent) driven by vivo, OPPO and Samsung.
The over mobile phone shipments in India grew by 11 per cent, while smartphone shipments grew 10 per cent.
India was also the fastest-growing smartphone market in 2018 with an annual growth rate of 10 per cent, according to Counterpoint.
“…India is underpenetrated relative to many other markets. This was one the key reasons for its growth in 2018 where not only new users shifted towards smartphones but there was a healthy upgrade within price tiers, especially from entry-level smartphones to the mid-tier segment,” Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research said.
