Mobile handset shipments in India recorded a 25% year-on-year (YoY) decline in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019 while feature phone shipments saw a noticeable decline of around 49% and smartphones recorded a 10% growth, a new report said on Thursday. According to CyberMedia Research (CMR), 4G contributed to 66% of mobile handset shipments, while 2G accounted for 34%. Chinese handset brands continued to dominate the mobile handset leaderboard while the market share of Indian brands dipped to 30% during Q1 2019.
"The overall market decline was on expected lines for Q1 2019. The above industry average stock build-up in the end of previous quarter resulted in lower shipments. Also, the recent change in e-commerce rules in India impacted the online dependent players," Narinder Kumar, Lead Analyst-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, said in a statement.
During Q1 2019, Samsung topped the overall mobile handset leaderboard with a 22% market share, followed by Xiaomi with 16% and LYF at 13%.
"It is interesting to note that shipments of the top five smartphone players accounted for 83% of total smartphone shipments in Q1 2019. The hyper-competitive nature of the smartphone market saw intense competition, resulting in sequential decline by 10-12% for both Xiaomi and Samsung shipments," said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR.
The Indian smartphone market saw the affordable smartphone segment (Rs 7,000- Rs 25,000) growing by 75% while the value for money segment (less than Rs 7,000) experienced a 22% growth.
The premium segment (Rs 25,001- Rs 50,000) grew at a flat 2.4% YoY.
