BBK Group's share of India smartphone market zoomed to 42% in Sep quarter

BBK Group - the parent company of brands like OPPO, vivo, realme, and OnePlus - achieved a record-high of 42 per cent share in India's smartphone market for September ended quarter, according to research firm CMR.

During the July-September quarter, the India smartphone market grew at 8 per cent with the top five vendors accounting for 8 out of every 9 smartphones shipped in the country, CMR said in a statement.

The BBK Group registered 23 per cent year-on-year growth in the third quarter. On a year-on-year basis, realme grew at 511 per cent, while vivo recorded 87 per cent growth, as per the CMR data.

"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," Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, said.

In addition to the BBK Group, the presence of Nokia and Apple in the top 10 smartphone leaderboard also points to the shifting market dynamics at play, he added.

While Nokia's smartphone shipments grew by 74 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) , Apple returned to the top 10 tally with a 28 per cent y-o-y growth, CMR said.

CMR said mobile phone shipment in India is likely to touch 280 million units by the end of the year with growth slowing down in the fourth quarter on account of low consumer demand and decreased shipments.

"...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," CMR Analyst-Industry Intelligence Group Anand Priya Singh said.

CMR noted that 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, and that it was no different this year.

Xiaomi remained the market leader in smartphone shipments, with one in four users buying a Xiaomi smartphone (26 per cent share), it said adding that Samsung had 22 per cent share.

The market share for affordable smartphones (sub-Rs 7,000) declined by 25 per cent, while the premium smartphone band (above Rs 25,000) more than doubled. The mid-tier 'value for money' smartphones (Rs 7,000-25,000) grew by 20 per cent, CMR said.

Samsung (22 per cent), itel (18 per cent) and Lava (13 per cent) were the top three players in terms of feature phone shipments.