Despite headwinds, Chinese smartphones continue to dominate Indian market

Make in India’s e orts to localise production of smartphones has made no dent in the dominance of Chinese smartphones in the Indian market. Data from Counterpoint Research revealed that the market share break-up for smartphones sold by Chinese brands, Indian brands and global brands have largely remained the same in the last five years.

This is after several e orts have been made by the government in the intermittent period to force out Chinese players from the market.

These e orts include the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme that was conceptualised in 2020 and which largely excluded Chinese brands like OnePlus,

Vivo, Realme from claiming the subsidy.

Price-conscious Indian consumers have always had a good appetite for cheap Chinese smartphones with state-of-the-art specs. Therefore, it is of no surprise that the majority of Indian customers continue to buy Chinese brands.

According to the Counterpoint data, between 2019 and 2023, the market share of Chinese smartphones sold increased from 72 per cent to 74 per cent.

GLOBAL BRANDS’ SHARE

What is more revealing from the data is the fact that the market share of phones sold by global brands has not budged at all in the last five years. India launched the PLI scheme for mobile manufacturing in 2020, which is in its third year of implementation.

The mobile PLI was also the first of the 22 PLI schemes that the government has launched since then. Global brands like Apple and Samsung have been the largest claimants for subsidies under the scheme.

Apple is also achieving record sales revenues in India every year. CEO Tim Cook highlighted strong double-digit growth in iPhone sales in India for the January-March quarter. Despite these numbers, the market share breakup of global brands sold has largely remained stagnant in the last five years from 27 per cent in 2019 to 25 per cent in 2023.

Indian brands like Lava

Mobiles that have also been beneficiaries under the scheme have made no headway in improving their sales; market share has gone down from 2 per cent in 2019 to 1 per cent in 2023. Even as telecom operators like Jio partner with Indian phone makers to make cheap indigenous phones, they have found limited takers.

Shubham Singh, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, told businessline that major Chinese brands have in fact seen a minor decline in sales in India. However, the newest Chinese entrant into the market, Transsion, has balanced the scales overall.