India is one of the world’s biggest markets for smartphones. In 2021, the smartphone market in India will bring in $38 billion, growing at a 27 per cent annual rate. In India, the smartphone penetration rate rose to 54% in 2020. Despite the global smartphone market’s pandemic-related decline, 2021 witnessed the highest level of smartphone sales.
Counterpoint Research reports that despite recent component shortages, the Indian smartphone market is still experiencing a fall in shipments of 1% YoY to over 38 million units in Q1 2022.
Sandeep Goyal, MD of Rediffusion, stated that “India will have 1 billion smartphone users by 2026, propelled by the fiberisation of villages under BharatNet and the upcoming deployment of 5G” to indicate the scope of expansion.
Unquestionably, the introduction of Chinese smartphone manufacturers into the Indian market has changed the dynamics of this market by bringing both affordable, feature-rich handsets to one end of the price spectrum and high-end, luxurious smartphones to the other. About 60% of the smartphones sold in India are made by Chinese companies; brands with notable growth include Xiaomi, OPP, Vivo, OnePlus, Gionee, Lenovo, Huawei, Coolpad, Phicomm, and Meizu, among others.
According to sources, Chinese servers have remote access to modems, networks, routers, and switches that Chinese companies install and sell in India, giving them access to the biometric information of many Indians.
According to business strategist and marketing expert Lloyd Mathias, with an estimated 493 million smartphone users, India is the second-largest smartphone market in the world behind China. Five brands—Xiaomi, Samsung, OnePlus, Realme, Vivo, and OPPO—dominate the market. In 2021, the Indian smartphone market was predicted to reach $38 billion, representing a 27 per cent YoY increase over 2020, which had a significant fall owing to the epidemic.
The luxury market will be the only one where 5G will spur growth. But considering the upcoming 5G auctions in July, it will be a heavily promoted feature and could significantly boost growth in the affordable-premium and premium classes. “Tier 2 markets and phones with tailored usage for particular sectors, like students, may present the biggest prospects,” said Llyod Mathias.
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