Samsung neck-and-neck with Xiaomi in India

Samsung Electronics is hot on the heels of China’s Xiaomi in the Indian smartphone market, prompting forecasts that the world’s largest smartphone maker will regain the No.1 spot.

In the second quarter, Samsung closed the gap with Xiaomi to 2.4 percentage points from 5.6 percentage points during the same time last year, according to Strategy Analytics on July 26.

Samsung posted a 26.3 percent market share after selling 9.4 million handsets, while Xiaomi’s share reached 28.7% by selling 10.2 million. The South Korean tech giant had lost title of the No.1 player in India to Xiaomi last year.

“Xiaomi remains the number one smartphone vendor in India, due to an extensive retail presence, but its lead over Samsung is starting to shrink. Samsung is on a recovery path and its smartphone market share has risen sharply,” said Woody Oh, a director at Strategy Analytics.

“A portfolio refresh undertaken by Samsung last year, and its ‘India first’ strategy, have been central to the firm’s resurgence in the second quarter. Enhanced Galaxy A and M series smartphones are helping Samsung penetrate deeper into the big online market. We expect Samsung to build further momentum and it is on track to reclaim top position in the world’s second largest smartphone market during the second half of 2019.”

In third place was Vivo, which sold 3.9 million handsets to take up an 11 percent market share, followed by Oppo that had an 8.1 percent market share by selling 2.9 million. Realme sold 2.8 million to take home a 7.9% share, making four out of the top five handset makers all Chinese.

Rajeev Nair, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “Vivo is also struggling to fend off a revitalized Samsung, and OPPO is facing intense competition in midrange price-bands from Xiaomi and others. Realme is a rising star and its India smartphone market share has jumped from zero to a record 8% in the past twelve months. Realme, an OPPO offshoot, is seeing surprisingly strong demand for its affordable Android models such as 3 and C2.”

Meanwhile, Indian smartphone shipments grew 3.2% to 35.6 million in the second quarter. Last year, Xiaomi shipped 41 million handsets to India, while Samsung shipped 31.3 million.

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