Indian smartphone market grows 8-10% in Q4

New Delhi: Smartphone shipments in India grew in the range of 8-10 per cent in the March 2024 quarter, with Samsung leading the market, according to two reports released on Thursday.

According to Counterpoint Research, Apple rose to the second spot in terms of value and volume in the Indian smartphone market, with 23 per cent and 19 per cent share, respectively.

CyberMedia Research (CMR) estimates that the Indian smartphone market grew by 10 per cent on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, with 5G handsets driving the growth.

The Counterpoint Research report said smartphone shipments in India grew by about 8 per cent in volume terms and 18 per cent in value terms.

According to both market research firms, Samsung was the market leader in the Indian smartphone segment.

As per CMR estimates, Samsung shipments grew by 4 per cent on a YoY basis and led the segment with a 19 per cent volume share.

"Samsung led the 5G smartphone market with a 22 per cent market share, followed by Vivo at 18 per cent during the quarter. The overall mobile market shipments recorded a growth of 20 per cent YoY in the first quarter of 2024. Samsung (18.8 per cent), Xiaomi (18.6 per cent) and Vivo (16 per cent) captured the top three spots in the smartphone leaderboard in the March 2024 quarter, followed by OPPO (10 per cent) and Realme (10 per cent)," the CMR report said.

According to Counterpoint, Samsung led the chart with 25 per cent volume share and 23 per cent in terms of value, closely followed by iPhone maker Apple with 19 per cent volume and 22 per cent share in value terms.

"With a one-fourth share, Samsung led the market in terms of value. Also, at USD 425, Samsung's ASP (average selling price) was its highest ever, driven by its leading position in the over Rs 20,000 segment. This can be attributed to a stronger mix of its newly launched Galaxy S24 series due to its features, such as GenAI, and the newly revamped A series, along with the increasing popularity of Samsung’s financing schemes," the Counterpoint report said.

Apple also witnessed a record quarter in India, leading the premium segment both in value and volume terms, driven by the latest iPhone 15 series, especially in offline channels, the report added.

According to CMR, Apple captured only 6 per cent market share in the smartphone market during the reported quarter, with the iPhone 15 series contributing over 60 per cent of its total shipments.

"The Premium smartphone segment (priced above Rs 25,000) recorded remarkable YoY growth of 71 per cent fuelled by easy payment options and premium features like AI. The Value-for-money smartphone segment, priced in the range of Rs 7000-Rs 25,000, constituted the largest share at 65 per cent. The affordable smartphone segment (less than Rs 7,000) experienced 16 per cent YoY growth," the CMR report said.

As per CMR, the overall feature phone market recorded 42 per cent YoY growth. However, 2G feature phone shipments decreased by 10 per cent.

The 4G feature phone shipments recorded over 650 per cent growth during the reported quarter, majorly driven by Jio, which captured 84 per cent market share, followed by Nokia at 13 per cent, CMR said.

Counterpoint Research said that premium smartphones priced above Rs 30,000 apiece reached 20 per cent volume share, its highest ever, and 51 per cent value share of the overall Indian smartphone market in the March 2024 quarter.

"In the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, India's 5G smartphone shipments captured their highest-ever share of 71 per cent. MediaTek led India's smartphone chipset market with a 53 per cent share, and Qualcomm leads the premium segment with a 35 per cent share. During Q1 2024, the offline share reached 64 per cent, marking the highest quarterly post-COVID figure," the report said.

According to Counterpoint, India's smartphone market is estimated to grow in single digits in 2024, driven by strong premiumisation, 5G adoption and post-COVID upgrades.