While Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo grew in leaps and bounds in the Indian smartphone market in Q2 2018, a CMR report states that Indian brands like Micromax, Intex and Karbonn are bleeding dry. In the second quarter of 2018, Micromax lost 41.2 percent market share, while Intex, HTC, Karbonn and Gionee lost 11.6 percent, 5.5 percent, 5.3 percent and 4.7 percent market share respectivel.
The data was made available by CMR’s “India Smartphone Movemement” report. Xiaomi gained the most with 36.9 percent new devices across India, followed by Vivo, Oppo, Itel and Huawei. At the same period, homegrown brands were left far behind.
It seems the Chinese strategy of offering great value for money in their devices is convincing new smartphone buyers to opt for the most feature-packed smartphones in their budgets. The CMR report also states that more than 70 percent smartphone users in India switched brands in the second quarter of 2018. This benefited Xiaomi the most as 37 percent of phones that were bought as replacements were made by the Chinese giant.
Indian brands like Micromax, Karbonn and Intex used more influence in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities, but armed with a strong offline retail strategy, the same Chinese brands that used to be online-only arrived and captured the market. Xiaomi’s offline expansion has been stellar. 30 percent of the company’s smartphone sales now come from the offline sector. Mi Home stores and Mi Preferred partner stores have cropped up across the country.
The company now expects 50 percent of its sales to come from the offline market. “Consumers continue to swap their existing smartphones with the new ones offered by Chinese brands resulting in fast erosion of total installed base of the local Indian brands,” Kanika Jain, Manager, New Initiatives, CMR said in a statement. The report is based on the analysis of 200 million users across the country. It also noted that 60 percent of new smartphones sold are replacements indicating that the Indian smartphone market is quickly maturing.
There is still a 41 percent market for new smartphones where the Indian brands should focus upon if they want to survive in the Chinese onslaught of affordable, value-for-money devices. 2018 is turning out to be quite the year for the Indian smartphone market. Earlier, a report by Counterpoint Research claimed Samsung has grabbed its numero uno position back from Xiaomi while OnePlus toppled Apple and Samsung to become the number one in the premium segment. Incumbents like HMD’s Nokia and Honor have also registered stellar growth in India. It remains to be seen what the second half of the year has in store for us.
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