27.10.17

The world’s second ­largest smartphone market


Cheap handsets and the proliferation of 4G services have helped India overtake the US to become the world’s second largest smartphone market, trailing only China, according to a new report by analyst firm Canalys.

After a wobble in the second quarter of 2017, India’s smartphone market recovered quickly with shipments growing 23% year on year in the third quarter to reach just over 40 million units, Canalys analysts said.

Despite posting excellent results, the market continues to concentrate, with the top five vendors (Samsung Electronics, Xiaomi Inc., Vivo Electronics Corp., Oppo Electronics Corp. and Lenovo Mobile Communication Technology Ltd) now accounting for 75% of total shipments in India.

Samsung and Xiaomi accounted for almost half of the total market as the top five vendors continued to post strong growth in Q3 2017. Samsung shipped 9.4 million smartphones, almost 30% more than in Q3 last year.

Second-placed Xiaomi increased shipments by over 290% to 9.2 million units.

Apple Inc. began local production in India earlier this year, and its iPhone shipments more than doubled to 900,000 units in Q3 2017 compared with the year-ago period, impressive in a market that is skewed toward low-end smartphones.

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