Despite anti-Chinese sentiments and a vigorous push to ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, Chinese smartphone sales in India are picking up again as Indian players are failing to provide affordable options to the buyers compared to their foreign competitors. According to a report published by Canalys, Xiaomi has 30.9% market share in India in Q2 2020 while Vivo and Oppo shares stand at 21.3% and 12.9% respectively. Realme has captured 10% market share in the country. Overall, the Chinese brands have captured around 75% of the Indian market.
Madhumita Chaudhary, analyst at Canalys said, “As we all know Chinese vendors capture about 75% of the overall Indian smartphone market. Having said that, I expect that the boycott of Chinese goods will be easier said than done as boycotting will come at the expense of India hurting its economy and given the fact that Chinese vendors account for 70% smartphone sales in India.”
Earlier, a report published by Counterpoint Research had found out that shares of Chinese companies in the Indian smartphone market dropped to 72% in Q2 of 2020 from 81% in Q1 2020 due to lockdown restrictions and shutdown of production units. But now due to lack of options, Indian consumers have no choice than to go for Chinese phones, which are better and affordable.
Commenting on the findings, Shilpi Jain, research analyst at Counterpoint Research, said, “India smartphone consumers don’t have many options. In the current scenario, Chinese companies face no competition as they are giving products at cheaper rates with a host of features.” While Samsung and iPhone are a bit expensive, people prefer to buy phones at an affordable price. According to her, India needs to become a largescale manufacturer rather than an assembler of mobile phone components.
Meanwhile, the e-commerce platforms are still selling Chinese products like ‘hot cakes’ in the Indian market. Prominent Chinese smartphone brands like Redmi, Oppo, Vivo, Oneplus and others have not seen any downfall in their sales on Amazon and Flipkart. OnePlus 8 Pro, which was launched in India on 18 June on Amazon, was sold out within minutes. Chinese mobile companies dominate the Indian smartphone market, which is worth over Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Indian consumers have doubled their spending on the top four Chinese brands, including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Honor, to over Rs 50,000 crore. According to Counterpoint Research’s report, Xiaomi remained the top selling smartphone brand on ecommerce platforms with 44% market share while OnePlus was the top premium smartphone brand on Amazon and Realme remained the top selling brand on Flipkart.
The recent sales in online platforms suggest that when it comes to sales, the impact was minimal compared to what is being reflected on social media and one of the key reasons is the lack of alternatives. Chinese brands are aligning their product as well as channel strategies to drive up volumes across the country. Prachir Singh, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, said that multiple financing options and attractive offers had made the devices more affordable for consumers. “During the quarter, multiple brands adopted an onlineto-offline (O2O) business model and hyperlocal delivery to help their offline channel partners,” said Singh.
“The situation will not change overnight, as consumers have limited options. The sub-Rs 15,000-price band captures a significant portion of the market, and Chinese vendors have flooded the market with better price-to-spec ratio or affordable products with latest features. This is one reason that Indians will still prefer buying products that offer better specs at a reasonable price, due to limited availability of devices at such a competitive price point,” Madhumita stressed further. Pertinent to mention that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo and Vivo had already set up their manufacturing facility in Greater Noida to double up the production.
With no options in hand, traders forced to sell Chinese goods
Despite many efforts to push consumers to buy indigenous goods, traders are forced to sell Chinese products as Indian players lag way behind their competitors in the market. The government also gave a vigorous push to ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ to reduce India’s dependency on imported products. But the reality on the ground is far from what is being reflected on social media platforms or the narrative being pushed by those vandalising stores selling ‘Made in China’ products.
Commenting on the ground reality, Ankur Bindra, manager of Sheeba Telephonics, a retail mobile store in District Centre, Janakpuri, said: “There is no dip in the sale of Chinese smartphones as they are reasonably priced and caters to the population who are willing to buy smartphones in the price segment of RS 20,000.”
He further added, “We don’t have any Indian brand to sell. Moreover, Apple and Samsung devices are very expensive and only highend customers purchase them. When we talk about ‘Make in India’, then these products should be available in the market. As of now, we don’t have any Indian smartphone brand to sell. Earlier, there were Micromax but it has also failed now.” Another smartphone retailer, Kuldeep Singh said that they had not seen much decrease in the sales of Chinese smartphones and if the government wanted people to not buy Chinese brands, then they should either have banned it or have given a substitute to the public.
