Smartphone shipments in India recorded a substantial growth of 40 percent to reach a record high of 39 million units in Q3 2017, according to IDC.
With this achievement, India smartphone shipments accounted for 10 percent of the global smartphone shipments for the first time ever in a quarter, says IDC.
Overall mobile phone registered a 30 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, highest sequential growth ever in India with more than 80 million of mobile phone shipments in the third quarter of 2017.
The sale of smartphones was boosted by popular e-tailers festival sales and campaigns. Thirteen million smartphones were billed to e-tailers with 35 percent annual growth and 73 percent growth from the previous quarter.
Also, Xiaomi’s sales through its website continued its growth and helped boost the share of overall online channel from 32 percent to 37 percent compared to a year ago.
Samsung and Xiaomi led the smartphone market in the quarter with each having 24 percent market share, as per IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Q3 2017.
Samsung had a record quarter with 39 percent sequential growth QoQ and 23 percent year-on-year. Galaxy J2, Galaxy J7 Nxt, and GalaxyJ7 Max were the key models that contributed to almost 60 percent of Samsung’s volume.
Xiaomi almost tripled its shipments YOY and doubled QoQ in 2017Q3 as vendor increased its focus on the traditional channel for marketing its products. Redmi Note 4 continues to be the best-selling smartphone in India as Xiaomi shipped approximately 4 million units in this quarter, IDC said.
“eTailers have popularized many trends in the Indian smartphone market, like making devices more affordable through easy financing options, attractive exchange offers on existing smartphones. On the back of fresh infusion of funds and focus on India market, the eTailers are expected to remain aggressive in 2018 as well,” says Jaipal Singh, senior analyst, IDC India.
Raising concern on upcoming offline trend, Upasana Joshi, senior analyst, IDC India, said, “The offline channels were enjoying good growth in the past few quarters due to high retail spend by China-based vendors to create pull for their brands. But now, when the channel margins and incentives are getting normalised and few other previously online heavy vendors are getting aggressive in offline, the fight for the retail shelf space is expected to further intensify.”
Lenovo (including Motorola) made it back to the third position after two quarters as its shipments increased 83 percent from the previous quarter. A couple of new launches under the Motorola brand reversed its internal brand share and now Motorola contributes to two-third of its portfolio.
vivo slipped to fourth position as its shipments declined after a record breaking second quarter, although registered a healthy 153 percent annual growth. Vendor started to bounce back from September onwards as its newly launched V7 Plus and Y69 gained strong initial traction in the market.
OPPO had the biggest sell-in quarter so far in India as vendor shipments increased by 40 percent sequentially and 81 percent from same period last year. Vendor share also noticeably increased as it started participating in the eTailers platform to sell its devices.
“After an online dominated pre-and post-Diwali period, the offline channel went through a rather soft festive period. eTailers will continue to be a big driving force for smartphone growth in India, although vendors’ offline focus will continue to keep retail as the dominant channel in India,” says Navkendar Singh, associate research director, Client Devices, IDC India.
“It will be interesting to see how exclusive partnerships between telcos and vendors, own smartphones brand launches by e-Tailers and availability of dual cameras, bezel less screens at more affordable price points, shape up in the coming quarters,” added Singh.
Source: IDC
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