In spite of the coronovairus pandemic and the devastating impact it has had on the economy over the past couple of months, India’s smartphone market posted excellent results during the quarter ended March 2020. According to Canalys, the overall market grew 12 percent year-on-year, with shipments hitting 33.5 million units. Xiaomi continued to rule the roost, managing to increase its lead at the top with a market share of 30.6 percent, shipping 10.3 million smartphones in the quarter.
Fellow Chinese vendor, Vivo, increased its shipments by a whopping 50 percent, replacing Samsung as the second-largest smartphone vendor in the country. According to the report, Vivo shipped 6.7 million units in the country, grabbing a market-share of just under 20 percent during Q1, 2020. Samsung, Realme and Oppo rounded off the top-5 with 6.3 million, 3.9 million and 3.5 million units, respectively.
As is to be expected, though, Canalys says that the Indian smartphone market will shrink significantly during the current quarter because of the pandemic, as the lockdown remains in force at least up to May 3rd and vendors struggle with supply-side issues in the immediate future. Much will also depend on whether the government relaxes some restrictions next week as the country looks to get back to a semblance of normalcy in the coming days.
According to Canalys analyst, Madhumita Chaudhary, consumer demand will improve once the lockdown restrictions are lifted, but “worker availability, which depends heavily on opening state borders and allowing public transport, will be a key issue for vendors and ODMs”. She also said that online channels are expected to outperform offline channels as fear of the virus will prevent most people from going to retail stores and shopping malls.
