Counterpoint’s newest smartphone market survey for India has revealed that because of the strong sales of smartphones and featurephones, handset shipments have crossed 84 million mark for the first time in India. Also, Samsung and Xiaomi account for 45 percent of smartphone market in India in Q3 2017.
According to Counterpoint’s market research for the third quarter of this year, Samsung has a market share of 23 percent. The South Korean company is closely followed by Xiaomi with a market share of 22 percent. In Q3 2016, Samsung and Xiaomi had respective market shares of 23 percent and 6 percent. Xiaomi’s strong performance in mid-range smartphone segment (Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000) has catapulted it to rival with Samsung in India.
Counterpoint Associate Director Tarun Pathak claims that Xiaomi accounts for three of the top 5 bestselling smartphones in the country. It appears that Xiaomi may soon dethrone Samsung to become the number smartphone brand in India. Vivo, OPPO and Lenovo are respectively placed on third, fourth and fifth positions on Counterpoint’s smartphone market research for Q3 2017.
Read More: Xiaomi to Announce New Series of Selfie-Centric Phones in India on November 2
This shows the dominance of Chinese smartphone brands in India. For the third consecutive quarter, their market share has remained more than 50 percent after they surpassed local brands in second half of previous year.
Reliance Jio that was commercially launched its 4G LTE network in September 2016 has not only significantly increased the mobile data consumption in India but also driven the demand for 4G enabled phones. It has been found that 97 percent of the smartphones shipped in Q3 2017 are LTE enabled devices. In a short span of less than a year, it has managed to add 100 million subscribers to its network and it is looking forward to adding another 100 million users with the launch of its LTE enabled JioPhone featurephone.
When it comes featurephone shipments, Samsung is leading the pack in Q3 2017 with a market share of 23 percent. ITEL, Micromax, HMD Global’s Nokia, and Lava make up the top five featurephone brands in India. The featurephone market has met with 22 percent (QoQ) with the arrival of handsets that are priced around Rs. 1,000 like the JioPhone and Nokia branded phones.
During the third quarter of 2017, the premium segment that includes smartphones costing more than Rs. 30,000 have met threefold growth (YoY) during Q3 2017. The market leaders in the premium segment are Apple, OnePlus and Samsung in the same quarter.
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