India smartphone shipment up 10% to 36.9 mn in Q1
New Delhi: Smartphone shipment in India registered 9.9 per cent year-on-year growth to 36.9 million units in the June 2019 quarter and the market is expected to continue its growth trajectory in the second half of the year, according to research firm IDC.
About 33.5 million units were shipped in the April-June quarter last year. The shipment was also higher by 14.8 per cent sequentially in the June 2019 quarter, IDC said.
Xiaomi led the tally with 28.3 per cent market share, followed by Samsung (25.3 per cent), vivo (15.1 per cent), Oppo (9.7 per cent) and Realme (7.7 per cent).
A total of 69.3 million mobile phones were shipped to India in the June 2019 quarter, up by 7.6 per cent over the previous quarter.
"India smartphone market will continue its growth trajectory in the second half 2019, but the consolidation of top few brands will continue. This will make it much more challenging for smaller players to find niches of growth," IDC India Research Director (Client Devices and IPDS) Navkendar Singh said.
He noted that a very strong performance in the second half is "essential to bring double-digit Y-o-Y growth".
"We should expect continued aggression by the online heavy brands and e-tailers in the next few months fuelled by new launches and price reductions of last few launches, leading up to the festive season in October," he said.
Singh added that much more competitive offline market play can be expected going forward, with all the major brands fighting for limited shelf space that will make the retail channel very critical for any brand's success. "Despite the efforts towards multi-channel retailing by almost all vendors, the online channel continued its growth momentum fueled by multiple new launches, attractive offers and affordability schemes like EMIs/cashbacks," IDC India Associate Research Manager (Client Devices) Upasana Joshi said.
She added that this resulted in a Y-o-Y growth of 12.4 per cent for the online channel with an overall share of 36.8 per cent of the shipment in June 2019 quarter.
