There is not much good news for the Indian smartphone market, according to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) worldwide quarterly smartphone sales tracker. As per the report, the Indian smartphone market saw the worst Q3 shipment numbers since 2019. The shipment fell 10% YoY, with total shipments standing at 43 million units in Q3 2022.
What is more surprising is the fact that the numbers dropped despite the tremendous Diwali sales response. Samsung, however, took the crown for the 5G smartphone segment, with shipments reaching a 27% share of the total market. Notably, the Samsung Galaxy M13 was among the top-five most-shipped devices in India.
Xiaomi, which includes POCO and Redmi, led the sales in Q3 2022 with 9.2 million shipments, despite recording an 18% YoY decline. Samsung stood second with 8 million shipments. Samsung was followed by Vivo, which sat in the third position with a 19.5% YoY drop in shipment. Previously, Vivo was in second place in the 5G segment with a 15% market share.
One of the fastest-growing smartphone brands, Realme, saw an 18% slump in shipments YoY, shipping 6.2 million units. OPPO recorded 5.4 million unit shipments and ranked 5th. In fact, OPPO was the only company that recorded a 6% YoY shipment growth. The majority of the sales were done via online channels, which recorded a 58% market share.
Offline shipments saw a drop by 20% YoY, with 16 million units sold. As noted by IDC, 5G smartphone sales “reached 36% of total smartphone sales in Q3 2022.” Also, some good news for MediaTek as the MediaTek-powered smartphone shipments increased to 47% of the total market. Qualcomm, on the other hand, dropped to 25%, with UNISOC-based smartphones trailing by 15%.
The sub-$300 segment saw shipments decline by 15% YoY. On the other hand, the Indian premium smartphone segment of “$500+ continued to be the highest-growing price band. It increased by 64% growth YoY and an 8% share, with Apple leading with a 63% share, followed by Samsung (22%) and OnePlus (9%).
