Xiaomi has managed to dethrone Samsung to become the number one smartphone market vendor in India in Q4 2017. The company shipped 8.2 million smartphones in the three-month period putting it ahead of Samsung which shipped 7.3 million smartphones in the same period to take the second position.
Samsung could not retain its lead in the Indian smartphone market despite posting a 17 percent annual growth in its sales. Annually, Xiaomi saw its market share increase from 9 percent in Q4 2016 to 25 percent in Q4 2017. Samsung saw a decline of 1 percent, from 24 percent to 23 percent. Other players like Lenovo, Vivo, and Oppo also saw a decline in their market share, with each now occupying 6 percent of the market share in India. In Q3 2017, Xiaomi had managed to tie for the top spot with Samsung in the Indian smartphone market.
Xiaomi’s staggering rise in India over the last one year can be attributed to the company launching some excellent smartphones in the sub-Rs 15,000 segment in the country. Additionally, the company has seen a meteoric rise in its sales in the country thanks to its aggressive offline expansion in the last six months or so. Xiaomi’s expansion has come at a time when Oppo and Vivo have seen their retail network in India collapse which has negatively affected their sales in the region. Overall, the Indian smartphone market grew by a modest 6 percent in 2017. Xiaomi is not expected to continue its rapid pace of growth in the country further as it has seemingly reached its saturation point. The company will now have to look towards expanding into other markets of the world to further fuel its growth.
