India defies global trends as smartphone shipments grow 20%

IDC has released its quarterly estimates of smartphone shipments for India, claiming 33.5 million units were sold across the period, a year-on-year increase of 20%.

While this is great news for Indian telcos and smartphone manufactures, capitalising on the country’s late charge towards the digital economy, global trends are not as positive. Broader estimates from IDC put global smartphone shipments down 1.8% over the course of the second quarter, though in shipping 95 million devices, the three month period was a positive one for Huawei.

“Huawei has had a stellar quarter worldwide moving into the second position, toppling Apple,” said Upasana Joshi of IDC. “In India, with a refreshed focus it has been able to grow its share in the online space in the last two quarters, on the back of several new launches across price segments. IDC believes Huawei should be seen as a serious long-term player in India market with all the ingredients to challenge Xiaomi and Samsung.”

As the wealthier markets worldwide are no-longer looking as glorious for the smartphone manufacturers, with many hitting a glass ceiling in terms of smartphone penetration to population, India is a very attractive proposition. The young, increasingly affluent, population are ready to be sold to. Largely thanks to the Reliance Jio disruption, the digital revolution is fast taking over the country with data consumption rising healthily quarter-on-quarter. Jio consumers use on average 10.6 GB of data per month, including 15.4 hours of video. The appetite for the digital economy and more premium devices usually go hand-in-hand.

While the majority of devices are still low- to medium-end, shipments of high-end devices (those worth more than $500) doubled year-on-year, with the Samsung Galaxy S9 series and OnePlus 6 being crowned winners. OnePlus surpassed Apple to take second place in the premium market share rankings. That said, consumers are taking advantage of financing schemes in the offline channels to snap up deals, average selling price decreased from $167 to $157 for the quarter, while demand for feature phones continues to be strong, growing 29% year-on-year.

In terms of capitalising on the opportunity right now, Xiaomi took top spot for shipments over the three months, increasing its shipments by 107% year-on-year and capturing 29.7% of total market share. Samsung captured 23.9% of shipments, though with Huawei continuing to make solid progress worldwide it might not be too long before it starts making its mark on the India market.

Which country will take the leadership position in the 5G world?

Total Voters: 149