Samsung closes the gap with Xiaomi in India’s smartphone market

Samsung is closing the gap with Xiaomi as the largest smartphone vendor in India. According to research firms Counterpoint and Strategy Analytics, the company registered a significant growth in its market share during Q2 2019. Samsung’s resurgence is driven by the huge popularity of its new Galaxy A and M series smartphones. The Galaxy A10 was the best-selling Samsung smartphone during the April-June 2019 period.

New strategies paying off

Samsung refreshed its smartphone portfolio this year to better compete against Chineses OEMs in markets like India. The company launched a new, online-exclusive Galaxy M series to penetrate deeper into the big online market. It also revamped the existing Galaxy A series to launch a handful of aggressively priced budget and mid-range phones.

Samsung literally launched a phone at almost every price point, and this strategy appears to be working very well. It has already regained a lot of lost ground in the smartphone market in India. Samsung saw a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth of 30% in its smartphone shipments in India, the latest data by Counterpoint shows. Its Q2 2019 market share stands at 25%. Xiaomi was the country’s largest smartphone vendor in this period with a market share of 28%.

Strategy Analytics, meanwhile, estimates Samsung to have a slightly bigger chunk of smartphone market share in India. The firm suggests Samsung’s share to have grown year-on-year (YoY) to 26.3% in Q2 2019. Counterpoint suggested a 4% YoY decline. It is worth mentioning here that the figures don’t match because research firms have their own methodologies.

Samsung also fared better in the feature phone segment. Its share grew from 9% in Q2 2018 to 21% in Q2 2019. In the premium segment, however, OnePlus surpassed Samsung to become the number one in India. Overall, smartphone shipments in India grew to 37 million units in Q2 2019, which, Counterpoint claims, is a new second-quarter record. Strategy Analytics estimates the figures at 35.6 million units.

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