Xiaomi retains No. 1 spot; Apple re-enters top 10, says report

Amid reports of slowdown, the mobile handset industry in India continued to grow and has registered a year-on-year growth of 8 per cent. According to the latest CMR India Mobile Handset Market Review Report for the third quarter of 2019,  the market share for affordable smartphones priced less than Rs 7,000 has declined by 25 per cent. On the other hand, the mid-tier category priced between Rs 7,000 and Rs 25,000 grew by 20 per cent. The premium smartphone segment over Rs 25,000 grew by 101 per cent. Xiaomi continued to be on the top, followed by Samsung, Vivo, Realme and Oppo and Apple has once again returned to the list of top ten players. Interestingly, the top five vendors accounted for eight out of every nine smartphones shipped in India.

Kanika Jain, Analyst-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, says, "Historically, the third quarter remains a high growth point for the mobile handset industry, driven primarily by a cocktail of festive sales, attractive discounts, and online offers. It was no different this year."

While the Xiaomi's growth declined by 2 per cent year-on-year, it continued to be the market leader in smartphone shipments, with one in four users buying a Xiaomi smartphone. Redmi 7A, Redmi Note 7 Pro and Redmi Note 7S together contributed more than 50 per cent to its overall shipments. The company even saw positive growth for Redmi K20 series that contributed 13 per cent to its overall shipments of premium smartphones.

Samsung saw its market share erode by 5 per cent year-on-year during Q3 2019 even as the Galaxy A 50, A2 Core and the M30 did fairly well, contributing close to 50 per cent to its overall shipments.

Vivo registered an impressive growth of 87 per cent in Q3 2019 driven by Y and S series. Realme C2, Realme 5 and Realme 3i series, contributed 66 per cent to realme's shipments in Q3 2019 with year-on-year growth of  511 per cent. Oppo experienced a 44 per cent year-on-year growth. Combined with OnePlus, the BBK Group, the parent company of OPPO, Vivo, realme, and OnePlus, achieved a record high of 42 per cent in Q3 2019, registering a 23 per cent year-on-year growth.

Nokia's smartphone shipments grew by 74 per cent year-on-year, while Apple's comeback in top-ten was driven by the successful iPhone XR and the increased shipments of iPhone 11.

Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, says, "The major highlight for the quarter is the sheer dominance of the BBK Group, that now accounts for a bulk of the play in the smartphone market across price tiers through clever market segmentation strategy aimed at varied consumer personas. In addition to the BBK Group, the presence of Nokia and Apple in the top ten smartphone leaderboard also points to the shifting market dynamics at play."

"Going forward, on the back of the record shipments in Q3 2019, we anticipate the fourth-quarter growth to slow down, on the back of low consumer demand and decreased shipments, in light of the existing channel inventory," added Anand Priya Singh, Analyst-IIG, CMR.

CMR anticipates mobile phone shipments to touch 280 million units by the end of the fourth quarter.