Anti-China sentiments helped global companies more than Indian ones

Both for apps and smartphones, the Indian companies have not gained as much headway as they had hoped to with the anti-China sentiment overtaking the country.

Indian smartphone companies like Lava, Karbonn and Micromax are scheduled to launch smartphones soon but they have a long way to go to make any impact in this market after having lost out to Chinese brands over the years. (Pixabay)

Global firms have benefited more than Indian companies following the government ban on Chinese applications as well as the anti-China sentiments in the country.

Roposo is the only Indian app out of the top three which gained from the ban on massively popular TikTok, reports Sensor Tower. Other two apps that gained are New York-based Dubsmash and Xiaomi owned Zili.

Zili app installations surged almost threefold in three weeks following the June 29 ban on TikTok in India and rose to 8 million installations from 3 million. Chinese Snack Video touched a lifetime high of 23.5 million downloads in India and was at the number one spot on the Apple App Store as of July 13, according to a Mint report.

Considering their China-links, both Zili and Snack Video may also get banned in the future. As of now, these two apps are fully operational in the country.

Creators look for alternatives

Roposo, Chingari and Mitron gained huge traction immediately after the ban on TikTok. These apps, however, are still at the nascent stages. A once-thriving TikTok creators' community is now looking for alternatives that can yield similar success and monetary benefits. For now, Instagram has an upper hand, says a study by influencer.in, a survey marketing firm.

YouTube recently announced that it now has about 2,500 creators who have over a million followers each. The video and music streaming platform, however, did not attribute this increase to the ban.

The trend corroborates industry pundits' prediction that Indian platforms like Mitron, Chingari etc, the ones who gained from the ban, were too early in their life cycle for influencers to really benefit from using them.

Samsung gains in the smartphone space

On the other hand, for devices and smartphones, Samsung gained market share in the smartphone space. Counterpoint Research data showed that the South Korean company rose to the second spot in the smartphone space with a 26% market share in the June quarter, up from 16% it had in Q1 2020.

Samsung beat Vivo to take the second spot. Vivo retained its 17% market share this quarter. Other Chinese companies like Realme and Oppo lost 3% market share each in Q2 2020.

Research analyst from Counterpoint Shilpi Jain explained that the contribution of Chinese brands to the smartphone market fell to 72% in Q2 from 81% in Q1 this year. This was essentially fuelled by two factors - a disrupted supply chain for some of the major brands like Realme, Oppo and Vivo and the growing anti-China sentiment in the country.

Samsung had lost its lead in the smartphone space more than a year ago and has not been able to win it back since. Retailers had predicted that anti-Chinese sentiments would help Samsung and the company also ramped up its portfolio here with a whole range of affordable phones this quarter (like the Galaxy M Series).

In comparison, Indian smartphone companies like Lava, Karbonn and Micromax are scheduled to launch smartphones soon but they have a long way to go to make any impact in this market after having lost out to Chinese brands over the years.