It was only in November when IDC reported that Samsung and Xiaomi are tied with 23.5% in Indian smartphone market. And now after 2 months, a new report by Canalys shows that Xiaomi has beaten Samsung to have the top position only for themselves.
Xiaomi’s presence in Indian market went viral because of their successful device lineup at incredibly lower price than the competitors. According to Canalys, Xiaomi was able to ship 8.2 million smartphones in Q4 of 2017. Whereas, Samsung shipped almost a million less than Xiaomi, i.e. 7.3 million. Even though Samsung’s annual growth was recorded at 17% they couldn’t beat Xiaomi. Following Xiaomi and Samsung, the Indian market is dominated by Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo.
Though Xiaomi showed a vast growth in 2017, their presence in market will be saturated in 2018 as its share in home country China is also decreasing. Thus, Xiaomi will now have slower growth while it enters newer markets this year. But, due to their success in world’s two largest smartphone markets, investors and partners will have more confidence in them.
Now as Samsung has lost its first position for the first time in India, they will be focusing more on their R&D to provide competitive smartphones at sub Rs.15,000 were they are lacking. Thus, the war between Samsung and Xiaomi will still continue in the year 2018.
