Chinese companies are invading the Indian smartphone market like never before

It’s been long that Chinese smartphone companies found their way to the Indian smartphone market, one of the fastest-growing smartphone markets in the world, but now, they have started to make a strong foothold here, giving tough competition to the top three brands - Samsung Electronics, Micromax Informatics and Intex Technologies.

Also read: Troubles may mount for Indian smartphone vendors and you can blame China

The Chinese brigade, led by Oppo, Vivo and Gionee, gained a significant share in the market during the first quarter of this fiscal, riding on the back of an aggressive retail and marketing strategy.

Also read: ‘Make In India’ will help Indian companies outperform their Chinese counterparts, says S&P Global Ratings

These Chinese brands emerged as favourites amongst the trade because of a bigger margin payout as compared to other mainstream brands. They also shell out more money for display space and branding, which is why they have been able to make their way into the smallest of neighbourhood stores in India.

The share of Chinese smartphone brands rose to 27% of the total smartphone market in Q1 of FY 2016-17, as compared to 21% in the last quarter, said Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

Also read: India is ahead of China in smartphone sales pace but can’t replace its role in global handset industry

As compared to that, Samsung's share fell to 25.6% during Q1, as compared to 29% in the preceding quarter. Similarly, Micromax's share slipped to 14.1% from 17%, and Intex lost 1.5% share from the last reported 10%.

Also read: So this is why Chinese smartphones brands are gaining Indian buyers’ attention

Even though Samsung shipped more units when it comes to absolute numbers, the share narrowed because of a slower growth rate as compared to the Chinese brands, as told to ET by Tarun Pathak, senior telecom analyst at Counterpoint Research.

Samsung, however, said that it had consolidated its smartphone market share to 47.7% in the first six months of 2016 as compared to 38.4% from same period last year.

"Not only do we lead the premium segment with an over 50% market share, our Galaxy J2 series smartphones in the affordable segment, with Make for India innovations, has emerged as the most popular device of India, contributing 24% of the smartphone value market share," said Manu Sharma, VP (Mobile Business), Samsung India Electronics.

Image source