Samsung beats Xiaomi in overall mobile phone market, but trails in smartphone sales

Feature phone sales and more than decent smartphone sales have provided South Korean company Samsung a lead in the overall mobile phone market with a market share of 24.0%

International Data Corporation’s (IDC) has released year-over-year statistics of India’s smartphone market. The agency has claimed that there has been a sharp decline of (-50.6%) in the second quarter to 18.2 million units, as the country remained under lockdown through the first half of the quarter.

Though feature phone shipments declined by (-69%) YoY to 10 million units in 2Q20. They still managed to occupy 35.5% of the overall mobile market. However, this is the lowest ever for this segment. Feature phone sales and more than decent smartphone sales have provided South Korean company Samsung a lead in the overall mobile phone market with a market share of 24.0%, followed by Xiaomi and Vivo.

However, in the smartphone market Xiaomi continues to be the market leader with a market share of 29.4%, compared to last years 28.4%. Samsung managed to reach the second spot with 26.3% compared to last year’s 25.2% followed by Vivo, Realme and Oppo respectively.

All brands, however, have registered a steep decline in terms of overall volume. Xiaomi registered total shipments of 5.4 million in 2Q20 with a drop of -48.7% YoY. Four out of the top five models in 2Q20 were Xiaomi models, namely the Redmi Note 8A Dual, Note 8, Note 9 Pro, and Redmi 8, accounting for 21.8% share.

Samsung surpassed vivo for the second slot despite a strong YoY decline of (-48.5%) in 2Q20 to 4.8 million units. The Galaxy M21 was among the nation’s top 5 shipped models in 2Q20. The South Korean company stood in second place in the online channel with a share of 22.8% and was the leader in the offline channel with 29.1% share in 2Q20.

vivo slipped to the third position, with shipments of 3.2 million units, declining by (-42.9%) YoY in 2Q20.realme was at the fourth position with 1.78 million units shipped in 2Q20, declining by (-37%) YoY. OPPO at fifth position witnessed a (-51.0%) YoY decline to 1.76 million units in 2Q20

According to the report released by IDC, vendors faced major supply chain disruptions at the beginning of the quarter, and the shortage continued into the rest of the quarter as factories operated at partial capacity even after the lockdown was lifted. Components and parts remained at the ports waiting to be cleared, especially for China-based vendors. By June, sales increased mainly due to the pent-up demand from the lockdown period. However, purchases were mainly driven by availability rather than by choice.