Samsung takes first place in India, but Chinese smartphone brands are catching up fast

Photo credit: Samsung.
Samsung sold the most smartphones in India in 2015.

According to Canalys’ latest report, India’s smartphone growth in 2015 is as robust as ever, with a growth rate in the double digits. Samsung sold the most units in the country, taking up more than a quarter of the market and swapping spots with homegrown smartphone maker Micromax. While Micromax captured first place the year prior with 22 percent of the market, its annual shipments in 2015 dropped severely. Canalys attributes this to “inventory build up in distribution channels,” which generally means that stores have stopped buying phones because customers aren’t asking for them.

Other Indian brands like Intex, Karbonn, and Lava also suffered declines in their shipments.

Chinese company Lenovo along with Motorola – which it acquired in 2014 – rose to third place, selling a combined three million units in the country. This is interesting given Lenovo’s latest announcement that it plans to eventually phase out the Motorola brand.

Photo credit: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

According to Rushabh Doshi, an analyst at Canalys, the ecommerce boom has made it the perfect time for new smartphone makers to enter the country. Because there’s not much of a need to establish offline stores, selling phones in India has become cheaper, more straightforward, and, with increased distribution to non-urban cities, much more far-reaching. “Chinese vendors, such as Vivo and Xiaomi, continue to make inroads with low-cost LTE smartphones,” he explains. “[They] are instead investing heavily in marketing, building brand recognition and cementing their place in the market.”

This poses new challenges for low cost smartphone makers in India. “Local players are finding it tough to compete with global vendors on product quality, making it hard for them to push products into higher price bands,” he explains.