IDC: Vivo Becomes No.1 Smartphone Seller In India

IDC's latest Q2 report on India's smartphone shipments reveals a contraction in the overall market, aligning with Counterpoint Research's findings from a few days ago. According to IDC, India's market has shrunk by 10% from the previous quarter to 64 million units, marking a 3% year-on-year decline. However, the most significant news is the reshuffling of the top smartphone brands in India. Xiaomi, which held the top spot until last year, has slipped to fifth place, while Vivo has made a remarkable leap from third to first place within a quarter, marking a meteoric rise for the BBK-owned brand.

The average selling price of phones has increased by 13% year on year, although this figure has also declined this quarter. "Consumers are opting for premium offerings, driven by easy and affordable financing options. IDC expects this growth momentum to continue in the upcoming months in 2023," said Upasana Joshi, Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, highlighting the trend towards more premium offerings.

In Q2 of 2023, 17 million 5G smartphones were shipped. Samsung, Vivo, and OnePlus lead this segment, prompting Xiaomi to launch the Redmi 12 5G to counter this trend. Notably, the iPhone 13 by Apple and the OnePlus Nord CE3 Lite were the highest shipped 5G models in the quarter.

Xiaomi's market share has significantly dropped from 17.6% last year to just 11% now. Meanwhile, Vivo has claimed the top spot in India with a 16% market share, pushing Samsung to second place with 15.7% of the market. This represents a year-on-year drop of 0.6% for the South Korean giant and a 6.2% reduction in overall unit sales.

Vivo has seen a year-on-year increase in unit sales of 7.4%. OnePlus, thanks to its Nord series, has also gained ground, witnessing a 61.1% rise in units and becoming the sixth-largest seller of phones in India.

Interestingly, Apple, which only operates in the premium and ultra-premium segments, is now the seventh-largest player. It has also seen a rise of 61.1% in unit sales, and its market share has grown to 5.5%, up from 3.3% a year ago. Now Apple also counts India amongst its top 5 markets globally.

Xiaomi's Poco brand has seen the highest growth in unit sales at 76.5% and now holds the eighth spot in the market with 5% of the total share.

Tecno and Infinix have also experienced rapid growth, with year-on-year unit sales increases of 44.1% and 41.1% respectively, securing the ninth and tenth positions in the market.