India overtakes US to become 2nd largest smartphone market
45 per cent of the smartphone market in India, Samsung and Xiaomi makes a win win for India, as it surpasses the US for the first time ever. In the third quarter of this year as the market grew 37 per cent (quarter on quarter) and 18 per cent (year on year), India is a step ahead. India handset shipments reached an all-time high of over 84 million for the first time ever, driven by strong sale of both feature phones and smartphones. "This is the first time since 2012 that Samsung and Xiaomi have reached this level of combined share. Additionally, the quarter was marked with return to growth for local handset players such as Micromax and Lava in the smartphone segment," said Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research. However, local brands like Micromax and Lava grew 41 per cent and 24 per cent (QoQ), respectively, in the smartphone segment recovering from their all-time low during demonetisation last year. "It has been almost a year since Reliance Jio launched its 4G LTE network officially, which drove an inflection point for mobile data consumption as well as demand for 4G capable phones," said Shobhit Srivastava, Research Analyst at Counterpoint. Within a year, Jio attracted more than 100 million subscribers to its network and now is targeting the next 100 million subscribers by bringing the first ever LTE featurephone to the market. Three out of four mobile handsets shipped were "Made in India" during the third quarter. "Three out of the top five best-selling smartphones in India were from Xiaomi alone. Xiaomi has been popular in the past for its value for money offerings," said Counterpoint Associate Director Tarun Pathak. -PTC News
