Well, the day has finally arrived for Xiaomi India. Xiaomi is now the leading smartphone brand in India with 27% market share as per the global insight firm Canalys. As per Canalys forecasts, Xiaomi India shipped a whopping 8.2 million smartphones in Q4 2017 to become the market leader in the country. However, this figure is million short when compared to Xiaomi's Q3 2017s shipments figure of 9.2 million.
Samsung failed to maintain the top spot as it shipped 7.3 million smartphones, and secured second place in the market with 25% market share. Vivo, Oppo, and Lenovo are the third, fourth and fifth largest smartphone vendors in the country. The top five rankings are expected to see a massive change in 2018 as both Oppo and Vivo are under serious pressure with inadequate sales.
Samsung India has seen 17% growth, and the overall market share grew by a modest 6% overall with the total shipments touching around 30 million.
“Xiaomi’s persistence has paid off,” said Ishan Dutt, Canalys Research Analyst. “Its results are commendable, given it entered the market just three years ago. Multiple factors have contributed to Xiaomi’s growth, but the key reason for its current success lies in the autonomy that it granted its Indian unit, letting it run the business locally. Localisation in channel strategy, marketing and products have been evident in Xiaomi’s Indian operations,” he further added.
Having said that, Xiaomi and Samsung now contribute more than 50% of market share in the Indian market. Xiaomi' success comes from the sub Rs 15,000 price point, where Samsung isn't able to make its mark. The South Korean giant tried various new things of launching old smartphones with a new moniker in the market but wasn't able to replicate the success of Xiaomi. Even the Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime released a couple of weeks ago featured two-year-old hardware. With that strategy, Samsung won't even match Xiaomi and its value for money products.
However, Canalys predicts that Xiaomi's growth will be hard to come by in 2018 as Samsung is rumoured to launch a new online-only series to take on Xiaomi. Irrespective of how aggressive Samsung becomes, it won't be able to achieve Xiaomi's pricing strategy. Xiaomi promises a wonderful 2018, and it's interesting to see what Xiaomi has under its sleeves.
