Xiaomi leads smartphone sales in India, but slumps on home turf

Despite ending 2018 with a dominant position in the growing India smartphone market, Xiaomi's sales declined in its home market in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to a report from the International Data Corp (IDC).

With 10% market share in the China smartphone market, Xiaomi came fifth in the list of top smartphone players in China. The company had 13.9% share in the fourth quarter of 2017, showed the report on Thursday.

In India, Xiaomi grabbed 28.9% market share in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Smartphone shipments in the Chinese market were down 9.7 per cent year-over-year to some 103 million units in Q4 2018, according to the latest IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

Huawei led the China smartphone market with 29 per cent market share. Huawei is followed by OPPO (19.6 per cent), Vivo (18.8 per cent) and Apple (11.5 per cent), the findings showed.

Xiaomi took a significant fall in the domestic market due to various factors including adjustment of product mix and channel inventories and also internal reorganisation, IDC said.

Among the top five smartphone vendors, Huawei was the biggest winner in Q4 on the back of blockbuster flagship models and a steadily rising brand reputation.

OPPO and Vivo maintained a stable performance by consolidating their strengths in the mainstream price range and online market.

But Apple continued to decline as its expensive unit prices became increasingly out of line with the tough market environment.

"The Chinese smartphone market still looks hardly optimistic in 2019," Xi Wang, IDC China Senior Market Analyst, said in a statement.

--IANS

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