The ongoing border tensions and the anti-China sentiment in India have failed to verify the dominance of Chinese handset makers, who controlled a whopping 77% of the total 145 million smartphones shipped throughout the final calendar year. Analysts count on that as India prepares for 5G, these brands are anticipated to enhance their influence in the domestic marketplace in 2021.
“Political headwinds between China and India are having little to no impact on the momentum vendors like Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo gathered in 2020. Chinese vendors collectively contributed to about 77% of total shipments in 2020, against 72% in 2019, with the share likely to continue moving north as the nation prepares itself for the onset of 5G,” Canalys Research analyst Varun Kannan stated.
During Q4 2020, Xiaomi shipped 12 million units consolidating its lead with 27% marketplace share followed by Samsung with 9.2 million shipments and a marketplace share of 21%. Vivo remained third shipping 7.7 million smartphones, though Oppo moved up the ranks to fourth location with 5.5 million units. Realme came in fifth, shipping 5.1 million units, Canalys stated.
“The last power shuffle in India, from Samsung to Xiaomi, occurred when the country made its arduous journey from 3G to 4G. As the nation stands on the brink of a mass-market movement to 5G, Chinese vendors will be ready to capitalise on the shift. All-in-all, the outlook for 2021 will be better than just the nation recovering from Covid-19,” Kannan added.
Overall, the smartphone marketplace completed 2020 with practically 145 million units compared to 148 million units in 2019, marking the world’s second-biggest smartphone market’s initially complete year decline in history. However, following a record higher quarter in Q3 2020 driven by sturdy sell-in preparation of vacation promotions, shipments in India throughout Q4 2020 stood at 43.9 million units, a healthful development of 13% more than Q4 2019, Canalys stated.
Canalys study director Rushabh Doshi stated, “Along with the ongoing execution of the PLI (production linked incentives) scheme, the looming 5G rollout, as well as new players’ entries, we expect a faster recovery for the entire industry in 2021. The pandemic underlined the need for connectivity, with smartphones at the centre of people’s lives and livelihoods.”
On the entire, the marketplace is now poised to adopt newer technologies more quickly than it did ahead of, be it 5G, rollable displays or even connected technologies like hearables or wearables.
The pandemic has fueled the want for customer tech ownership, he added.
Doshi emphasises that throughout the final calendar year, Indian customer demand has shown remarkable resilience towards smartphones, which has provided vendors, channel partners and provide chain vendors adequate self-confidence to bump up investments in the marketplace.