India's smartphone shipment up 10% in Q2, Xiaomi leads Samsung: IDC report

Smartphone shipment in India registered 9.9 per cent year-on-year growth to 36.9 million units in the June 2019 quarter and the market is expected to continue its growth trajectory in the second half of the year, according to research firm IDC.

About 33.5 million units were shipped in the April-June quarter last year. The shipment was also higher by 14.8 per cent sequentially in the June 2019 quarter, IDC said.

Xiaomi led the tally with 28.3 per cent market share, followed by Samsung (25.3 per cent), vivo (15.1 per cent), Oppo (9.7 per cent) and Realme (7.7 per cent).

A total of 69.3 million mobile phones were shipped to India in the June 2019 quarter, up by 7.6 per cent over the previous quarter.

"India smartphone market will continue its growth trajectory in the second half 2019, but the consolidation of top few brands will continue. This will make it much more challenging for smaller players to find niches of growth," IDC India Research Director (Client Devices and IPDS) Navkendar Singh said.

He noted that a very strong performance in the second half is "essential to bring double-digit (YoY) growth".

"We should expect continued aggression by the online heavy brands and e-tailers in the next few months fuelled by new launches and price reductions of last few launches, leading up to the festive season in October," he said.

Singh added that much more competitive offline market play can be expected going forward, with all the major brands fighting for limited shelf space that will make the retail channel very critical for any brand's success.

"Despite the efforts towards multi-channel retailing by almost all vendors, the online channel continued its growth momentum fueled by multiple new launches, attractive offers and affordability schemes like EMIs/cashbacks," IDC India Associate Research Manager (Client Devices) Upasana Joshi said.

She added that this resulted in a (YoY) growth of 12.4 per cent for the online channel with an overall share of 36.8 per cent of the shipment in June 2019 quarter.

Offline channel, on the other hand, registered a growth of 8.5 per cent (YoY) growth.

The overall average selling price (ASP) stood at $159 in the quarter under review with 78 per cent of the market below USD 200 price segment.

However, the fastest growing segment was the $200-300 with 105.2 per cent (YoY) growth.

This was mainly due to the demand from customers looking to upgrade, additionally fuelled by China-based brands which are bringing innovations and flagship like design language at mid-price segments, IDC said.

The $400-600 was the second-fastest-growing segment with 16.3 per cent y-o-y growth in the June quarter with OnePlus leading the segment (63.6 per cent share).

The premium segment ($500 and above), Apple cornered 41.2 per cent share.

The feature phone market continued its decline with 32.4 million-unit shipments, registering a drop of 26.3 per cent (YoY) in the June 2019 quarter.

This was due to lower shipments of 4G-enabled feature phones with 40.3 per cent (YoY) decline in the quarter under review, IDC said.

It added that the 2G feature phone segment also declined as challenges remain for Indian brands along with small players facing heat owing to duty hikes on imports.