Flipkart and Xiaomi grew the overall smartphone demand whereas Amazon and OnePlus grew the demand in premium segment across online channels throughout the year.
New Delhi, Hong Kong, Seoul, London, Beijing, San Diego, Buenos Aires –
Feb 23th, 2018
According to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, India's overall online smartphone shipments grew 23% annually, faster than the overall smartphone market in CY 2017. Seasonal sales events, aggressive promotions and value for money offerings from Chinese brands drove the demand for the online channel.
Commenting on the research findings, Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research said, “The high-spec but low-cost, value for money smartphone models exclusively available only on online platforms were instrumental in successfully creating unprecedented demand throughout the year. The demand for such models was felt not only in online but offline channels as well due to walk-in customers asking for attractive models such as the Redmi Note 4. This has sparked an obvious channel extension strategy move to expand offline and capture the pent-up demand which is helping vendors such as Xiaomi which are able to offer such attractive models. In 2018, many brands will learn from Xiaomi’s growth from online to offline and will try to replicate a similar strategy.”
Commenting on the competitive landscape, Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research said, “Online channel contributes to more than one third of the total smartphones shipped in India during the year, which is the highest in the world. Flipkart led the online smartphone channel capturing more than half of the market in both volume and value terms maintaining its lead with Amazon. However, Amazon also able to grow share capturing almost one third of the market in volume and value terms. Indian online channel market has become a duopoly with Flipkart and Amazon capturing a combined 84% of the total volume and 87% of the total value.
Together Flipkart and Amazon were able to attract a lot of brands and consumers on their platforms by launching close to 100 exclusive model SKUs throughout the year. However, these platforms will have to adopt multiple strategies from increasing number of serviceable ZIP codes, hybrid offline stores and customer service kiosks to attract and gain more users to the platform.
Exhibit 1: India Online Smartphone Shipment Market Share by Platforms CY 2017
Source: Counterpoint Research Market Monitor CY 2017
Exhibit 2: India Online Smartphone Shipment Market Share by Brands CY 2017
Source: Counterpoint Research Market Monitor CY 2017
*Lenovo Includes Motorola
Market Summary:
Exhibit 3: India Online Smartphone Revenue Market Share by Brands CY 2017
Source: Counterpoint Research Market Monitor CY 2017
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The Market Monitor research is based on sell-in (shipments) estimates based on vendor’s IR results, vendor polling triangulated with sell-through (sales), supply chain checks and secondary research.
Analyst Contacts:
Tarun Pathak
tarun@counterpointresearch.com
Karn Chauhan
Neil Shah