After dominating the Indian smartphone market – the fastest growing market for smartphones in the world, for more than a year, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has recently lost out the race to one of its domestic rivals in China.

At the end of the quarter ended June 2019, about 30 per cent of the total market in India of smartphones was captured by BBK Electronics, which is the owner of the smartphone brands Oppo, Vivo, Realme and OnePlus. According to a new report from tech consultancy Counterpoint Research, that market share of the Indian market put the company just ahead of its closest rival Xiaomi.

Despite loosing out on the overall market share in India, Xiaomi still retains the position of being the largest market share holder single brand company with a 28 per cent market share. With a 25 per cent share of the Indian market, South Korean smartphone maker Samsung was a close second. And with a combined 28 per cent market share, the top five positions of the Indian smartphone market were sealed by Vivo, Realme and Oppo. However the report from Counterpoint said that when OnePlus – which has just a 2 per cent market share in India, is added to the 28 per cent, the combined market share of the four brands under BBK surpasses the market share of Xiaomi to become the largest smartphone company of India.

The shift in market share is very significant because there are already more than 400 million smartphone users in India. Market experts and analysts expect that hundreds of millions more Indians are set to get connected to the internet through their mobile devices within the next few years.

High priced brands such as Apple have not managed to do well in the price sensitive Indian market which has left the market open to Chinese smartphone companies. Currently the Indian smartphone market is majorly dominated by Chinese companies, barring Samsung, as they have managed to offer smartphones that are more affordable for the millions of Indians whose average annual wage is less than $2,000.

In particular, one of the major beneficiaries that have made significant inroads into the Indian smartphone market in a short period of time is the Chinese brand Oppo. It was only in 2017 that the company was given the permission to set up its own retail stores in India and till recently was the primary sponsor of the Indian cricket team – the most popular sports in the country. And the very popular the Indian Premier League cricket tournament is sponsored by another brand of the BBK – Vivo.

Counterpoint said that during the three months ended June, on the overall, a total of 37 million smartphones were shipped in India.

(Adapted from CNN.com)

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