China to take 50 percent of India's smartphone market

[nimo_cn]

By Sankalp Phartiyal

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Chinese brands took their largest ever slice of the $10-billion Indian smartphone market in late 2016, accounting for more than one in every two phones sold - a growing market share that ate into sales from top-selling Samsung Electronics.

Samsung, the single most popular smartphone brand in India, commanded a roughly 30 percent market share just over a year ago. That slipped to 21 percent in November, according to tech research firm Counterpoint, the last month for which data is available.

Meanwhile - thanks to low cost, improved technology and an advertising blitz - Chinese brands like Oppo, Lenovo, OnePlus, Gionee and Xiaomi took a combined share of over 50 percent, compared to just 19 percent a year ago.

"Chinese brands are offering quality that is at par with Samsung, at a better price," said Manish Khatri, who owns two multi-brand smartphone outlets in Mumbai. "Of every 10 phones I sell, almost six to seven are now Chinese brands."

Celebrity endorsements from Bollywood actors like Hrithik Roshan and Ranveer Singh, along with huge sponsorship campaigns by brands such as Oppo and Gionee of the wildly popular Indian Premier League cricket franchise have helped improve perception of Chinese brands - once derided for their low quality.

"In a country like India, there are two religions - one is Bollywood and the second is cricket," said Arvind R Vohra, Gionee's India head, noting that both avenues have helped popularize its brand.

Chinese brand executives said innovative product features such as powerful selfie cameras with flash, quicker charging and longer-lasting batteries have also helped them thrive in India, one of the world's biggest and fastest growing smartphone markets.

In the large and ultra-competitive $120 to $440 mid-market smartphone segment, Chinese vendors have more than doubled their market share to 68 percent, while Samsung has lost 14 percentage points since November 2015, according to Counterpoint.

"Being a global company is Samsung's biggest curse," says Neil Shah of Counterpoint, adding Samsung cannot compete on price like their Chinese rivals, who are focused more on low-cost markets like China, India and Indonesia.

Shah said Chinese vendors' access to low-cost components and their expertise in designing metal casing for cheap phones has let brands like Oppo, OnePlus and Lenovo offer better quality products than Samsung, which uses plastic for its cheapest models.

Adding to Samsung's woes last year was the arrival of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's new telecom venture Jio, with heavily subsidised handsets to get customers on its 4G network.

Dyaneshwar Sarde, a 33-year-old Indian farmer who earlier used a Samsung device, said he wanted to buy a 4G smartphone to use Reliance Jio.

"Samsung phones were comparatively expensive, so I ended up buying a Lenovo a friend recommended."

India's home-grown brands such as Micromax, Lava and Karbonn are feeling the heat even more, according to Counterpoint, with their total market share having dropped to less than 20 percent from over 40 percent last year.

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Randy Fabi)

 

[nimo_cn]

I read it on Yahoo news app and don't know how to aquire a link, hence post the screenshot.

so indian domestic smartphone vendors are going down? two years ago they were enjoying a highest market share, what caused their recession?

 

[Srinivas_K]

I read it on Yahoo news app and don't know how to aquire a link, hence post the screenshot.

so indian domestic smartphone vendors are going down? two years ago they were enjoying a highest market share, what caused their recession?

this smart phone market domination is time bound.

Once the manufacturing sector pics up in India which is obvious, Chinese share percentage will reduce.

The reason why the India smart phones lost the market is because most of the parts are coming from China and assembling is the only thing that is happening in India.

 

[Voldemort]

I use a Xiaomi phone. Lots of features at a cheap price but not sure about the quality. New problems creep up every now and then.

Whatever happened to Micromax? They were doing quite well a few years ago.

 

[DingDong]

I use a Xiaomi phone. Lots of features at a cheap price but not sure about the quality. New problems creep up every now and then.

Whatever happened to Micromax? They were doing quite well a few years ago.

This is a known problem with most of the Indian companies, why should Micromax be any different? They make hay while the sun shines, no real intent to innovate to stay competitive.

I don't remember when was the last time I saw a Micromax advertisement on TV.

 

[IndianHawk]

I use a Xiaomi phone. Lots of features at a cheap price but not sure about the quality. New problems creep up every now and then.

Whatever happened to Micromax? They were doing quite well a few years ago.

Micromax still is at second position after Samsung. But it's price competitiveness in mid range market is almost gone.

Micromax was simply offloading Chinese material in India now the direct entry of the Chinese has clipped away micromax margins.

Even among the Chinese the coolpad and le eco are challenging xiomi.

But the good news is that the competition is forcing even chinese to manufacture in India. Once a manufacturing base is established a talent pool will develop and soon innovation will come forth.

This is a known problem with most of the Indian companies, why should Micromax be any different? They make hay while the sun shines, no real intent to innovate to stay competitive.

I don't remember when was the last time I saw a Micromax advertisement on TV.

Also micromax was out with global ads some time back . I guess there export earnings are pretty good .

 

[3deffect]

if indian mobile company give same feature with same price so why we bought chinese mobile...its competition so indian mobile company should do R&D and compete with chinese

 

[jackprince]

Micromax manufactures shitty products. It's ASS is awful. Once some problem crops up, the ASS of Micromax can never correct the problems. It has smeared the name of Indian mobiles so much that people is wary of buying any Indian handset. Also, Micromax is hardly an Indian manufacturer, but an assembler of Chinese handset. Xiaomi too is an Indian company by that standard as it also has opened assembly plants in India.

 

[Mikesingh]

Why blame and make fun of the Porkis for allowing the Chinese to flood their markets? We are doing so ourselves! Jeeez! This in spite of:

1. Having a negative trade balance with the Chinese amounting to $50 billion.
2. China opposing our entry into the NSG.
3. Opposing our membership as a permanent member of the Security Council.
4. Cocking a snook at us regarding terrorist Masood Azhar.
5. Gross interference in our internal affairs by claiming Arunachal as part of China and issuing stapled visas to them.
6 Refusing to issue visas to our Army officers who are serving in Arunachal.
7. Going berserk over the actions of the Dalai Lama and castigating India.

And many more shenanigans.

As Clinton once said, 'It's the economy, stupid!' Right! National security and self respect be damned!

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Why blame and make fun of the Porkis for allowing the Chinese to flood their markets?

At least we are able to export some substance to them back.

 

[square]

micromax , lava and intex all shifting their units from china to india......

that could be a reason for such advertizing ....

 

[Navnit Kundu]

This is a known problem with most of the Indian companies, why should Micromax be any different? They make hay while the sun shines, no real intent to innovate to stay competitive.

I don't remember when was the last time I saw a Micromax advertisement on TV.

I came out of exile just to upvote this!

Just last month I was sharing on the forum how there is an Indian brand called RDP which sells laptops and tablets etc. Having completely made up my mind to buy a laptop from them last month, I went to their site to find showroom address. I searched for 15 minutes and found everything except showroom address. So I sent a mail via contact form to ask them directly. I got a poorly worded response. At first when I read the response in the morning, I thought it was some Nigerian scam mail trying to sell me a laptop, then I noticed that it was a reply to my mail. I went to their site once again and saw the 'jobs' section of their site, it said that they have open positions for managers and will only hire an MBA from a premier college with minimum 12 years experience. These are the kind of emails these premier managers write :

Notice the random capitalization, total lack of consideration for articles, and prepositions. Must be an IIM A grad I am sure.

We can't let blind nationalism override out normal common sense and interests. No Indian company should take us for granted thinking that we are their captive audience and they will get sales even if they are complacent. I was willing to give it a try despite reading online reviews claiming that it's not worth it to buy this laptop and better to add just a few thousand and get a better laptop, still I was willing to take it because this RDP brand is an Make In India project with the metal lion and this is the quality they are providing. Reminds me of another successful product launched by Kapil Sibal called Aakash tablet.

During Diwali I had decided not to buy any Chinese phone, but I have reversed my decision now. As it is what difference does it make to us, earlier we were buying Nokia and Sony and Blackberry, all were foreign companies too. Instead of buying an iPhone and making profit for American, if you buy a Redmi and make profit for China, what difference does it make to us? both countries are our enemies, it's not like we were doing a noble thing earlier by buying American products. People are complaining that China is using these devices to store our data in the cloud and spy on us. So? did any Indian complain when American companies were doing that? Even today Indians start salivating at the thought of buying American products and going to America for employment despite knowing that USA is the largest patron of Pakistani army, even bigger than China.

iPhone le rahe ho toh Redmi kya bura hai bhai

 

[Sourav Kumar]

I have not bought any Chinese made mobile and I will keep avoiding all Chinese made stuff till the day China stops bugging India.

Comparing China and USA does not work. USA does not have territorial claims on Indian land. When Indians go to USA for employment, it is a win-win for India and USA. When Indian public buys Chinese made phone, it is a lose-win situation. Unless there is evidence that the Chinese companies are heavily invested in India generating employment and capabilities here, all Indians should avoid Chinese companies' products.

 

[Razor]

I came out of exile just to upvote this!

Just last month I was sharing on the forum how there is an Indian brand called RDP which sells laptops and tablets etc. Having completely made up my mind to buy a laptop from them last month, I went to their site to find showroom address. I searched for 15 minutes and found everything except showroom address. So I sent a mail via contact form to ask them directly. I got a poorly worded response. At first when I read the response in the morning, I thought it was some Nigerian scam mail trying to sell me a laptop, then I noticed that it was a reply to my mail. I went to their site once again and saw the 'jobs' section of their site, it said that they have open positions for managers and will only hire an MBA from a premier college with minimum 12 years experience. These are the kind of emails these premier managers write :

Notice the random capitalization, total lack of consideration for articles, and prepositions. Must be an IIM A grad I am sure.

This was bound to happen. Remember when we were in school how everyone started their "coaching" and "tuition" from what, 6, 7, 8?
I don't really understand why we tolerate this "coaching" business. It does not do any good.
This is not to say there aren't brilliant students from these institutions but I'm guessing plenty of 'em already left the country after their subsidized education.

 

[Tarun Kumar]

Lack of practical education is biggest bane. All students must be compulsorily taught welding, soldering, carpentry etc in school itself and theory courses must be reduced.

 

[airtel]

what Chinese Smartphone ??

these Are Top semiconductor companies ............

1 Intel Corporation United States 49 964 +6.3% 14.1%
2 2 Samsung Electronics South Korea 38 273 +15.6% 10.8%
3 3 Qualcomm United States 19 266 +11.9% 5.5%
4 4 Micron Technology United States 16 389 +16.1% 4.6%
5 5 SK Hynix South Korea 15 737 +22.9% 4.5%
6 6 Texas Instruments United States 11 420 +6.8% 3.5%
7 7 Toshiba Semiconductor Japan 8 496 -9.6% 2.4%
8 8 Broadcom United States 8 387 +2.5% 2.4%
9 9 STMicroelectronics FranceItaly 7 395 -8.5% 2.1%
10 15 MediaTek Taiwan 7 194 +57.5% 2.0%
11 10 Renesas Electronics Japan 6 910 -13.3% 2.0%
12 11 SanDisk United States 6 116 +5.6% 1.7%
13 12 Infineon Technologies Germany 6 071 +17.4% 1.7%
14 14 NXP Netherlands 5 457 +16.7% 1.5%
15 23 Avago United States 5 423 +107.9% 1.5%
16 13 AMD United States 5 388 +4.6% 1.5%
17 17 Freescale Semiconductor United States 4 560 +15.0% 1.3%
18 16 Sony Japan 4 528 +1.5% 1.3%
19 18 NVIDIA United States 4 007 +9.4% 1.1%
20 19 Marvell Technology Group United States 3 812 +12.0% 1.1%




Look at this None of the above is Chinese or Indian ..............

Most of the smartphones Use Qualcomm or MediaTek processors which are Produced In Taiwan .

now Most of the other subsystems Like Ram Memory etc are also manufactured by these companies .

most of the camera sensors are produced by sony (japan ) , samsung (Korea ) or toshiba (japan )

most of the displays are manufactured by Samsung(korea ) , Sharp Corporation (japan ) etc .

and phone is assembled by companies like Foxconn (from Taiwan ) .

and Foxconn (Taiwan ) is has assembling plants in India so all the workers are Indian ...........and they sell phones at dirt cheap rate .

so even if You are buying Chinese Brands Like xiaomi ..............then also ....China is getting very less Profit .

rest of the article is propaganda .

You are buying Indian or Chinese phones it does not matter ............Main benefit is Going to USA , Taiwan , Japan & Korea .

 

[airtel]

India should create Good economic ties with USA , Taiwan & Korea ....................they are very advanced in semiconductor technologies ..................& with their Help we can create Industry In India .

but it will require Huge investment from mukesh Ambani or TATA .

 

[airtel]

if China is selling mobiles in India .......................then India should sell cars in China

 

[DingDong]

if China is selling mobiles in India .......................then India should sell cars in China

View attachment 12973

Doesn't qualify for "Made in India". This is British workmanship under Indian Management.

 

[airtel]

Doesn't qualify for "Made in India". This is British workmanship under Indian Management.

Land-rover Jaguar has manufacturing plant in China (Changshu) & India (Pune ) .