Samsung beats Xiaomi to become numero uno in the Indian smartphone market

Samsung’s aggressive push online, “which was the highest-ever online contribution within its portfolio”, helped the brand regain its number one position in the market.

The Counterpoint report says that Samsung garnered 24% market share in Q3 2020 as compared to Xiaomi’s 23%. These two brands were followed by Vivo, Realme and Oppo who bagged 17%, 16% and 8% market share respectively. (REUTERS)

After coming in second for two consecutive years, Samsung has finally beaten Xiaomi to become the number one smartphone brand in India, as per a Counterpoint Research report. Samsung has shown a 32% year-on-year (YoY) growth to beat Xiaomi in the smartphone market here.

The Counterpoint report says that Samsung garnered 24% market share in Q3 2020 as compared to Xiaomi's 23%. These two brands were followed by Vivo, Realme and Oppo who bagged 17%, 16% and 8% market share respectively.

The research report opines that Samsung's “strong performance” in Q3 2020 was because of multiple strategies the brand employed including an effective supply chain and being able to touch multiple price points thanks to a whole bunch of new launches.

The report also states that Samsung's aggressive push online, “which was the highest-ever online contribution within its portfolio”, helped the brand regain its number one position in the market.

According to a Gadgets Now report, India's smartphone shipments grew 9% YoY to touch 53 million units in Q3 2020. And this, as Counterpoint also adds, is the “highest-ever shipment in a quarter for the Indian smartphone market.

Following the lockdown being lifted, the pent-up demand and strong online sales lead to this growth in smartphone shipments.

Prachir Singh, senior research analyst at Counterpoint said that the Indian smartphone market is on a recovery path as the lockdown restrictions have been eased and thus the market has shown consistent growth for the last few months.

He added that September has been “a high sell-in month” as brands prepared for the festive season and pushed stocks across channels. This has brands witnessing record growth as compared to last year.

According to Shilpi Jain, another research analyst from Counterpoint, there was some anti-China sentiment at the beginning of Q3 2020, but it soon subsided when consumers started considering different parameters during their purchase, preferring to go with value-for-money and good specs rather than sentiment alone.