No. 1 Smartphone Vendor in India
Xiaomi of China beat Samsung Electronics in the Indian smartphone market for the first time last year.
PTI of India reported on Jan. 26 that smartphone shipments to the Indian market reached 164 million units in 2018, up 10 percent from the previous year. It cited data from Counterpoint Research, a market research firm.
The Indian smartphone market is in sharp contrast with the Chinese market, which shrank 11 percent year on year in 2018 following a 4 percent drop in 2017. Smartphone shipments totaled 408.5 million units in China last year, market research firm Strategy Analytics said.
Chinese maker Xiaomi came in first in the Indian smartphone market with a 28 percent share in 2018. Its market share jumped 9 percentage points from 19 percent in 2017.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, Xiaomi recorded a 27 percent market share, surpassing Samsung Electronics’ 22 percent. For the whole of 2018, Samsung’s market share reached 24 percent, unchanged from 2017. Samsung Electronics was followed by Chinese companies -- Vivo (10 percent) and Oppo (8 percent) which came in third or fourth, respectively.
Meanwhile, smartphone users totaled 430 million in India.