The U.S. has been dethroned as the second largest smartphone market.
A new report by Counterpoint Research estimates that India surpassed the United States to become the second largest smartphone market with an estimated 158 million devices shipped to the country in 2019. China is still the global leader at number one.
Interestingly, India’s surge to second place is largely thanks to Chinese smartphone manufacturers. Phones manufactured by companies like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, and Realme made up a whopping 72 percent of devices shipped to India in 2019. The report largely attributes series’ of budget-priced phones from these companies as leading to their growth in the country.
These China-based smartphone manufacturers' popularity in India has also attributed to overall growth for the companies themselves. When it comes to Xiaomi, for example, India is now the company’s largest market, surpassing even China.
Apple also experienced growth in India. The report attributes this to price cuts to the company’s iPhone XR model as well as the release of the new iPhone 11 series of devices. The same can’t be said for Samsung, however. The company did not experience any growth in India in 2019. In fact, sales declined by 5 percent in the market over the course of the year.
So, what does this all mean? Smartphones are becoming more accessible to India’s large and growing population.
Now that the country is a global leader in the smartphone market, second only to China, brands are going to take notice of the Indian consumers' wants and needs when it comes to its smartphone devices.
