China’s BBK Group logs 42% share in India smartphone market in Q3

Gurugram, Nov 14 (IANS) China-based BBK Group, the parent company of OPPO, Vivo, Realme and OnePlus brands, achieved 42 per cent in the India smartphone market in the third quarter this year, registering a 23 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth, a new report said on Thursday.

According to CyberMedia Research’s (CMR) “India Mobile Handset Market Review Report for Q3 2019,” the smartphone market grew at 8 per cent, with top five smartphone vendors now accounting for eight out of every nine smartphones shipped in India.

Realme grew an incredible 511 per cent, while vivo recorded 87 per cent growth.

“The major highlight for the quarter is the sheer dominance of the BBK Group, that now accounts for a bulk of the play in the smartphone market across price tiers through clever market segmentation strategy aimed at varied consumer personas,” said Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR.

Xiaomi remained the market leader in smartphone shipments, with one in four users buying a Xiaomi smartphone. Despite witnessing its growth decline by two per cent (YoY), it saw positive growth for Redmi K20 series that contributed to 13 per cent of overall premium smartphones.

Apple returned to the top 10 list with a 28 per cent YoY growth, on the back of the successful iPhone XR and the increased shipments of iPhone 11.

“In addition to the BBK Group, the presence of Nokia and Apple in the top 10 smartphone leaderboard also points to the shifting market dynamics at play,” Ram added.

The market share for affordable smartphones (less than Rs 7,000) declined by 25 per cent, while the premium smartphone band (above Rs 25,000) grew by an impressive 101 per cent.

The mid-tier value for money smartphones (Rs 7,000 -Rs 25,000) grew by 20 per cent.

Samsung (22 per cent), itel (18 per cent) and Lava (13 per cent) rounded off the top three in feature phone shipments.

Samsung saw its market share erode by 5 per cent (YoY) during Q3 even as the Galaxy A 50, A2 Core and the M30 did fairly well, contributing close to 50 per cent of its overall shipments.

CMR forecasts mobile phone shipments to likely touch 280 million units by the end of fourth quarter.

“Going forward, on the back of the record shipments in Q3 2019, we anticipate the fourth quarter growth to slow down on the back of low consumer demand and decreased shipments, in light of the existing channel inventory,” added Anand Priya Singh, Analyst-IIG, CMR.