In India’s dampened smartphone market, Xiaomi experienced 18 percent year-on-year declienge in Q3 but managed to hold on to pole position.
According to IDC, more than 70 percent of Xiaomi’s shipments went to online channels, resulting in a 27 percent share of the online channel (including sub-brand Poco). The newly-launched Redmi A1 along with the existing Redmi 9A Sport /10A/10 helped garner volumes in the sub-US$200 segment.
Samsung climbed to second but with flat shipments of eight million. The Korean smartphone maker led the 5G segment with a 27 percent share.
Completing the top five are Vivo, Realme and Oppo, the only one in the list to grow six percent in Q3.
Overall, the India smartphone market slid 10 percent, shipping 43 million units in Q3. This was the lowest Q3 shipment since 2019 despite an earlier onset of the Diwali festivities. Weakening demand and increasing device prices negatively impacted festive buying.
High channel inventory continued to be a concern even with vendors’ efforts on channel schemes and price corrections to clear the stocks. Overall, the average selling price (ASP) reached a record US$226.
“The ASP has grown consistently for the past eight quarters in a row due to increasing costs and growing 5G shipments at mid-premium price points,” said Upasana Joshi, Research Manager of Client Devices at IDC India.
It’s looking like Q4 is not going to be better.
“Inventory pile up and post-festive cyclical demand tapering will lead to a muted Q4. 2022 is likely to see shipments of around 150 million units, a decline of eight to nine percent year on year. The major challenges going into 2023 are the impact of inflation on consumer demand, increasing device costs, and slow feature phone-to-smartphone migration. However, the migration of 4G smartphone users to 5G smartphones should give a growth fillip to the market in 2023, especially in the mid-premium and above segments,” said Navkendar Singh, Associate Vice President of Devices Research at IDC.
Photo: Xiaomi
Entelechy Asia 