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Around 28 million smartphones were shipped to India in the second quarter of this year, which represents a “modest” 3.7 percent growth quarter-on-quarter growth and of 1.6 percent year-on-year, according to a report from IDC. The report also shows that, just as the market had started to recover from the impact of demonetisation from late last year, the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the country from July meant weak sell-in shipments in the second quarter as the focus was on clearing the existing inventory. However, vendors’ proactive steps on absorbing the impact of GST helped to stabilise the sell-in for the month of June.
The study also found that the third quarter of the year started slowly as the sales channels adjusted to the new taxation system but they quickly recovered within a few weeks. The Indian smartphone market is now preparing for the biggest quarter so far. Offline channels have already cleared the old stocks, e-tailers are preparing for mega online festivals, and vendors are set to launch new models in the Diwali festive period.
After three quarters of continuous decline, Indian vendors registered 18 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the second quarter of 2017, but share remains limited to 15 percent of overall smartphone market. On the other hand, China-based vendors reached a 54 percent market share and registered 9 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the three months to June.
Samsung retained its leadership position with a decline of 4 percent from the same period of last year. Xiaomi secured second place with a 25 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the three months to June. Xiaomi triples its offline shipments in the second quarter of the year. Also, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4 with over 2 million shipments in the second quarter has become the highest shipped smartphone in a single quarter in the history of Indian smartphone, the report also indicates.
Vivo ranked third with 26 percent quarter-on-quarter growth and captured 13 percent market share in the second quarter of 2017, up from a 4 percent market share in the same period of 2016, while Oppo climbed up to the fourth place, though shipments declined by 13 percent quarter-on-quarter. Lenovo (including Motorola) slipped to fifth place as its shipments declined 25 percent sequentially. However, its Motorola brand saw a 17 percent quarter-on-quarter growth contributed by a couple of new launches at the end of quarter.
Overall mobile phone market shipments saw a 6.5 percent quarter-on-quarter growth after declining consecutively for two quarters. 34 million units of feature phones were shipped in the three months ended 30 June 2017, with 8.9 percent growth from the previous quarter but remained flat as compared to the same period last year.
