Xiaomi becomes India's top-selling smartphone maker
After surpassing Samsung in budget smartphone sales earlier, Xiaomi has now emerged as the top-selling smartphone manufacturer in India. Reports by research firms Canalys and Counterpoint confirmed that Xiaomi had indeed disrupted Samsung's six-year-long hold on the Indian smartphone market in the last quarter of 2017. Samsung, however, remained the top seller for the calendar year 2017. Here's more.
Consumer demand for Samsung devices have been weakening
"Samsung's loss comes from its inability to transform its low-cost product portfolio. Despite its ability to offer better margins and funding to the offline channel, consumer demand for Samsung's devices has been weak," said Rushabh Doshi, an analyst at research firm Canalys.
What the market report by research firm Canalys says
According to research firm Canalys, Xiaomi shipped around 8.2 million smartphones between October and December last year as opposed to Samsung's 7.3 million shipments in the same period. Canalys said in the aforementioned period, Xiaomi had 27% market share while Samsung captured 25% of the market. The firm also said that the autonomy allowed to Xiaomi's Indian unit also helped in its success.
Counterpoint's report points out Xiaomi's dominance
Meanwhile, research firm Counterpoint released a report which said that Xiaomi had managed to capture 25% of the Indian smartphone market in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017. In the same period, Samsung had a 23% market share, while Lenovo, OPPO, and Vivo all held 6% share of the market each.
Xiaomi on the ascendancy again
Despite struggling for a few years, Xiaomi's turn around and growing dominance in the Indian market indicates success in its business strategies. Once considered the darling smartphone-maker in the world and China's top-selling smartphone brand, Xiaomi's dominance was steadily corroded away by the likes of Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo. Xiaomi's CEO had said that the company had grown "too fast" leading to business challenges.
2018 poses new challenges for Xiaomi
"As Xiaomi's market share reaches saturation point in India, and the market continues to shrink in China, it must contend with slower growth for its smartphone business as it begins to expand in other countries," added Doshi, saying growth in 2018 will be much harder.
Feature phones continue to hold largest share of Indian market
Xiaomi's shakeup of the Indian smartphone market in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017 comes at a time of several parallel developments. Counterpoint said smartphone shipments had seen a growth of 12% in the same period. Interestingly, however, feature phone shipments saw a massive spurt of 55%. Feature phones which offer basic functionality hold the largest share of the Indian mobile phone market.
