Xiaomi leads India smartphone market in 2018, Samsung second: IDC report

Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Realme and OPPO emerged as the top five smartphone vendors in terms of market share in Q4 2018 in India.

The feature phone market, primarily driven by Jio Phones -- which makes up 56 % of the total mobile phone market clocked 181.3 million-unit shipments in 2018 (AFP)

Chinese brand Xiaomi with 28.9% market share led the Indian smartphone market in 2018, followed by South Korean brand Samsung at 22.4 % and Vivo at 10 %, an International Data Corporation (IDC) report said on Tuesday.

"The premium end of the market outgrew all other price segments in 2018 with 43.9 % Year-on-Year (YoY) growth -- OnePlus emerged as the leader in the price segment range $500-$700 and in the super premium segment and Samsung surpassed Apple for the top position with its Galaxy S9 series," said Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

According to the report, the online-focused brands drove the online channel share to an all-time high of 38.4 % in 2018 and a whopping 42.2 % in 2018 Q4 whereas offline channels had a rather muted year with a modest 6.7 % annual growth and a 5 % sequential growth in Q4.

"Shipments form Xiaomi, Asus, OnePlus and more grew online channels resulted by 47.3 % YoY in Q4, but the offline channel was unable to keep pace with the deep discounts and go-to-market initiatives from the e-tailers almost throughout the year," Joshi added.

The overall smartphone average selling price remained flat in 2018 at $158, with high shipments in the mass segment of $100-$200 -- which accounted for more than half of the smartphone market in India.

Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Realme and OPPO emerged as the top five smartphone vendors in terms of market share in Q4 2018 in India.

On the other hand, the feature phone market, primarily driven by Jio Phones -- which makes up 56 % of the total mobile phone market clocked 181.3 million-unit shipments in 2018, with 10.6 % YoY growth, the report said.