India Shipped 15.8 Crore Phones In 2019, Defeats US To Be 2nd Largest Smartphone Market

Indian love smartphones. So much so that India was regarded as one of the most crucial market for phone makers across the globe. And now a study estimates that it has defeated the US in the running for the most shipped smartphones.

While China still maintains the top slot with the most amount of smartphone users, India is now second in the world, when it comes to the number of smartphones shipped to the nation.

According to Counterpoint research, last year, India shipped 158 million smartphones — which was 7 percent less than last year. Analysts link the spike to devices being aggressively priced while also packing a ton of features for the price.

“Due to the availability of better performance devices, the smartphone market in India has matured, with people holding on to their devices for longer periods. This is the primary reason for slow growth,” said Karan Chauhan, an analyst at Counterpoint Market Research.

However, analysts feel that this could be resurrected this year as the growth is anticipated to be more than 10 percent.

What’s not shocking is that more than 72 percent of phones that were shipped, came from Chinese players like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Realme.

Xiaomi retained the number one position for the second successive year with a market share of 28 percent, followed by Samsung at 21percent, Vivo at 16 percent, Realme at 10 percent and Oppo at 9 percent.

Another brand that received a positive response last year was Apple, with the major price-cut received by Apple XR after the launch of iPhone 11s.

Samsung received a rather unimpressive response with their sales numbers being flat the whole year with a 5 percent decline as the year ended.

The analysts also commented on the 4G penetration of the nation. “Although the rate of growth for smartphone market hit single digit for the first time ever on an annual basis, India is underpenetrated relative to many other markets with 4G penetration in terms of subscribers being around 55%,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Counterpoint Market Research.