Online shipments of smartphones in India surged to its highest ever share of 43 per cent during the first quarter (January-March) of 2019. The shipments through online channel grew 17 per cent year-on-year during the period driven by new launches, sales events and lucrative offers, according to the latest report by Counterpoint Research.
According to Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, while the online shipments rose, the offline shipments of smartphones across the country during the first quarter of the year declined by 4 per cent on-year.
During the first quarter of 2019, Xiaomi led the online shipments capturing a 43 per cent market share, however, this was down on-year when compared to 57 per cent share it had during the same period last year. Xiaomi’s Redmi 6A, Redmi Note 6 Pro and Redmi Note 7 series drove the shipment volumes, contributing almost two-thirds of its total sales online.
On the other hand, Realme, which had not begun its operations during the first quarter last year, took 11 per cent share in the market during January-March this year, according to the data shared in the report.
“Price cuts of popular devices and more launches drove online channel shipments to the highest ever level In Q1 2019. Xiaomi’s Redmi 6A, and Note 6 and 7 series, Samsung’s online exclusive M series, Realme 3, Honor 10 Lite, and Asus Zenfone Max Pro series were the major contributors for the growth of the online segment. The high online channel share indicates that the new e-commerce policy has limited impact, and e-commerce giants have found a way to cope,” the report said quoting Anshika Jain, Research Analyst at Counterpoint.
According to Counterpoint Research’s report, the smartphone companies took advantage of their strong online reach to get rid of their excess inventory, before the change in the e-commerce policy of India in February 2019. But offline channels were still holding inventory accumulated during the record festive season in the last quarter (October-December) of 2018.
Companies such as Xiaomi, Realme, Asus, and Huawei contributed the most for Flipkart and accounted for more than four-fifths of its total smartphone sales during the period. Flipkart Mobile Bonanza and Women’s Day Sale drove shipments of Xiaomi, Realme, and Asus on its platform.
Flipkart led the overall online market with a 53 per cent share, Amazon India grew faster in the first quarter of 2019 with 38 per cent YoY growth. Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and OnePlus drove Amazon’s growth. Amazon India witnessed high sales of Redmi 6A, Samsung’s online exclusive M series, and OnePlus 6T on its platform stated Counterpoint’s findings.
Even as Flipkart led the overall online market with 53 per cent share, Amazon India grew faster in during the first quarter with 38 per cent on-year growth driven by Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus. The company witnessed high sales of Redmi 6A, Samsung’s online exclusive M series, and OnePlus 6T on its platform.
Also read: Xiaomi helped online smartphone shipments hit record high in Q1 2019: Counterpoint
Amazon India’s contribution also reached its highest ever level in the online premium smartphone segment (priced over Rs 30,000) with a share of 81 per cent due to sales of OnePlus, Samsung and Apple. Whereas shipments from Flipkart contributed to 17 per cent of the premium segment shipment.
The top five smartphone brands – Xiaomi, Samsung, Realme, Asus, and Huawei captured 85 per cent of the total online market share.
