LTE-capable smartphones contributed to 96% of smartphone shipments with Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Gionee being the fastest-growing brands in the country
The 4G handset base in India has crossed 150 million units in the second quarter this year, only behind China and the US even as Xiaomi surpassed Samsung as top seller in under-Rs 10,000 phone segment.
LTE-capable smartphones contributed to 96% of smartphone shipments with Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Gionee being the fastest-growing brands in the country, according to a report by Counterpoint Research released on Thursday. India is estimated to surpass the US in one year in terms of 4G handsets.
The stronghold of the feature-phone segment is estimated to further strengthen with the announcement of LTE-based "Jio Phone" by Reliance, which will slow down the conversion rate from feature-phones to smartphones.
Xiaomi toppled Samsung in the best-seller slot for smartphone models in the under Rs 10,000 segment in the second quarter of 2017. The top two handsets were Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 with 7.2% and Redmi 4 with 4.5% market share, followed by Samsung Galaxy J2 at 4.3%.
"Xiaomi's comeback can be attributed to strong demand for its sub-10K portfolio, making the Redmi Note 4 the top-selling model in the first half of 2017," said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Counterpoint Research.
"This is the first time any brand has been able to topple Samsung which has held the best-seller slot for its models over the last four years due to its enormous reach and scale," he added.
However, Samsung retained its top position in the overall handset shipment in both feature-phone and smartphone categories, with 25.4% and 24.1% market share, respectively.
In terms of performance, smartphone shipments grew by four per cent y-o-y with the top five brands contributing to almost 70% of the total smartphone market, leaving local brands behind in the third successive quarter. "Local brands did relatively well during the quarter after three-quarters of lull but still have a significant task cut out to reclaim the market share back from rivals," it said.
Shobhit Srivastava, research analyst at Counterpoint Research, said, "While GST remained the key talking points during the quarter as the growing domestic EMS (Electronics manufacturing services) players were also worried about the impact of GST on local manufacturing as all previous incentives were supposed to subside under the new regime. This was later addressed with the implementation of 10% basic customs duty on imported mobile phones and certain components by the government."
"Although shipments were impacted in anticipation of GST roll-out especially in June, retailers were quite hesitant in adding new stock into the channels during the last month even though there was some assurance from the OEMs to support pre-GST channel inventory clearance. Going forward, we estimate the market to jump back to double digit growth ahead of a festive season in 2H 2017," Srivastava said.
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