Flipkart leads online smartphone market in Q1 2018, Xiaomi impresses among phone makers
E-commerce channels consolidated in the first quarter of 2018, growing 4% YoY capturing a record 38% of the smartphone market in India, a Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service report said.
The sales were driven by exclusive online launches and strong promotions during the latter part of the quarter.
“The E-commerce segment grew faster than the offline segment during Q1 2018. While the smartphone shipments in offline segment declined by 3%, online segment grew by 4% YoY. This is driven by the increase in the number of models launching on online platforms coupled with aggressive offers,” Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research said.
“Additionally, smartphone brands have now adopted a multichannel strategy instead of relying on a single channel for distribution of their products and this has increased the competition over the past few quarters.”
Flipkart leads the e-commerce smartphone market with 54% share, US retail giant Amazon trails with 30% market share. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi’s online store, Mi.com has the third largest market share in India at 14%.
“India still has one of the lowest percentage of users who are connected to the internet and shop online. This trend is changing rapidly as 4G data consumption has increased and more users beyond metro cities are geared up to browse and shop online,” Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research said.
“Hence, in an effort to target first-time shoppers, both Flipkart and Amazon have scaled up their operations in recent quarters, especially in the smartphone segment which is a major value driving category for these platforms.”
The two main segment driving sales online were entry-level and premium. Entry level shipments were driven by Xiaomi while premium was driven by OnePlus. Amazon dominates the market in premium phones with 77% market share.
Four out of top five best-selling smartphones in India in the first quarter were from Xiaomi. Huawei Honor 9 Lite was the only non-Xiaomi smartphone in the list.
Not surprisingly, Xiaomi led online platforms with a share of 57% during Q1 2018, followed by Samsung (14%) and Huawei’s Honor (8%).
