A few days ago, a market research firm revealed that Samsung was the biggest smartphone brand in India during the second quarter of this year. Now, a different report claims that it was actually Vivo that topped smartphone shipments in India. According to IDC, Samsung dropped to second place in the Indian smartphone market during Q2 2023.
IDC's market research report for Q2 2023 claims that Vivo was the number one smartphone brand in India, with a 16% share of the market. That's a 7.4% improvement over the second quarter of 2022. Samsung had a 15.7% share of the Indian smartphone market, according to IDC. That's a 6.2% drop compared to Q2 of last year. Overall, the Indian smartphone market saw shipments of 34 million units during Q2 2023, a 3% decline compared to Q2 2022. Samsung, Vivo, and OnePlus were the best-selling brands in the 5G smartphone segment.
According to the report, sales through offline channels helped brands clear inventory, and Samsung has made an effort in that direction. The South Korean firm opened several flagship stores across India. It has plans to open a total of 15 flagship stores in India.
Samsung doing well in India's rapidly growing premium smartphone market
The ASP (Average Selling Price) of smartphones in India during the quarter was $241, an 8% drop compared to the previous quarter but a 13% improvement over last year. The sub-$200 smartphone category declined to 65% from 70% in Q2 2022. The mid-range smartphone category remained similar (22%) to last year, while the mid-to-high-end segment ($400 to $600) improved by 34% year-over-year with a market share of 5%. The premium smartphone (above $600) category saw a massive 75% improvement in shipments. accounting for 9% of sales of the entire Indian smartphone market.
Realme and Xiaomi were the brands that saw the highest sales drop. Realme ranked third with a market share was 12.6%, a drop of 29.8% compared to last year. Xiaomi's market share dropped from 17.6% in Q2 2022 to 11% in Q2 2023. That's a massive drop of 39.4% year-over-year, which shows the company's missteps in strategy over the past year.
OnePlus made huge strides in India and managed to increase its market share from 4.3% in Q2 2022 to 7.2% in Q2 2023, which is a 61.1% rise. The company's Nord series was extremely popular among buyers in the mid-range category. Apple, too, increased its sales by 61.1%, similar to OnePlus. iPhone's market share in India was 5.5%, up from 3.3% in Q2 2022.
Xiaomi's sub-brand POCO improved the most last quarter. The brand focuses on the entry-level and lower-mid-range segments. Its market share increased from 2.8% in Q2 2022 to 5% in Q2 2023. Tecno (3.8%) and Infinix (3.5%) also saw their smartphone shipments rise over 40% compared to last year.
