Xiaomi has emerged as a clear winner by beating Samsung in IDC Q3 2017 market share analysis. As per the research conducted in 50 major cities, Xiaomi registered a 120 percent growth while Samsung a mere 15%. Moreover, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4 contributed to more than 40 percent in volume and is the highest selling phone. Xiaomi’s offline strategy through preferred partners helped them achieve this success.
Xiaomi’s pursuit of winning started back in 2016 during which they made into the top five mobile vendors in India. They managed to sell over 4 million Redmi 3S units in 2016-17 following the success of Redmi Note 3. During this period they stepped into offline market partnering with offline distributors like Sangeetha, LOT Mobiles, Poorvika and more. This almost tripled their offline shipments during Q2 2017 thereby climbing up to the second position.
Moving To The Top – IDC Analysis
In 2017, Xiaomi launched several budget devices viz Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A which broke festive sale records. This gradually helped them to take the leadership position while pushing Samsung to second. Following the success and anticipated launch of a newer version, Xiaomi gave a permanent price cut to the Redmi Note 4 series in India.
“Mega-online sale(s) by prominent e-tailers acted as catalyst for the robust growth across city tiers with e-tailers now contributing around 40 percent of the market in top 50 cities of India. However, the offline channel saw only average traction during the festive season,” says Himanshu Jain, Market Analyst, IDC India.
According Navkendar Singh, IDC India, almost all the vendors have decided to go aggressive in the offline channel expansion. Dominant players like Samsung, Oppo, and Vivo will have to tweak their strategies a lot to reach out to the customers in these markets. Talking about their market share, Lenovo maintains their third position, while OPPO moved up to fourth position by a margin pushing down Vivo to fifth.
IDC says, Tier I cities including Delhi and Mumbai have contributed 29 percent sequential growth for Indian smartphone market. Tier II cities like Bhopal, Gurgaon, and Jaipur have also produced over 40 percent growth during Q3, 2017. 4G penetration is the main reason behind vendors getting attracted to these cities with new strategies. We are yet to see a climax in Q4 2017, hope you enjoyed the article, Peace!