According to International Data Corporation’s (IDC), 26.5 million smartphones were shipped to India in the second quarter of 2015, up 44% from 18.4 million units for the same period last year. This strong second quarter performance saw smartphone shipments grow by 19% following a sluggish first quarter this 2015.
However, this growth was specific to smartphones only as the overall Indian mobile phone market shrunk by 6% this second quarter of 2015 on a year-on-year (YOY) basis. Vendors only shipped 59.4 million units in 2015Q2 compared to 63.2 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2014.
The growth in the smartphone market was helped by vendors using online retail or eTail to penetrate the market. According to Kiran Kumar, Research Manager with IDC's India Mobile Phone team, "eTailers have opened additional avenues for growth for many vendors in India, who would have otherwise struggled to get a hold in the complex distribution network". Although India remains a retail dominated market, vendors such as Lenovo and Xiaomi have used etailing channels in India to rapidly expand their presence.
"The share of smartphone shipments through etailers increased for most of the key vendors in Q2," added Kumar.
In addition, Chinese vendors have tripled their shipments YoY in India and doubled quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei and Gionee alone accounted for 12% of the total smartphone market in the second quarter, double from a year ago.
"As China started to slow down, most vendors from the country have targeted India as the next big growth market for smartphones," said Kiranjeet Kaur, Research Manager with IDC's Asia/Pacific Mobile Phone team.
The new entrants to the Indian market have utilized specific strategies to drive sales growth, according to Kiranjeet Kaur. “Key to the success of the Chinese vendors has been popular flash sales through online players such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. At the same time, they also focused on bringing more 4G phones at affordable US$100-150 price points which is left unattended by Indian and global vendors”.
Except for Lenovo, the top vendors in the second quarter still had majority of their shipments going through traditional channels.
