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China Technology

Two-thirds of India's Smartphone Market, the Second Largest in the World, is Now Run by Chinese Handset Makers (venturebeat.com) 83

India's smartphone market, which is the second largest in the world (and one of the few markets that continues to show strong growth each quarter), is currently a key battleground for a number of phone makers from China, Taiwan, and South Korea. And increasingly, Chinese phone makers are winning. From a report: Leading the charge is Xiaomi, which last year ended Samsung's five-year-streak as the top phone vendor in the nation. The period between April and June of this year was the fourth consecutive quarter for Xiaomi as the top vendor in India, according to IDC. Xiaomi (29.7 percent market share as of Q2) has aggressively undercut the offerings of its rivals by selling inexpensive but high-quality smartphones in India. A spokesperson for the company said that India is currently its most important market.

In the second quarter of this year, four of the top five smartphone makers were Chinese, according to IDC. In addition to Xiaomi, that number includes Oppo (7.6 percent market share), Vivo (12.6 percent), and Transsion (5 percent). Together with other Chinese phone makers such as Lenovo, the group held two-thirds of the local smartphone market in the second quarter, IDC said in a report published last month. Less than three years ago, the aggregate market share of these companies was under 15 percent in India. [...] Indian smartphone makers Micromax, Karbonn Mobile, Lava, and others together held about 46 percent of the market in early 2016.
Per the report, Chinese players were originally the design and hardware (ODM) partners of Indian smartphone vendors. They saw an opportunity in India, and cut the middlemen -- Indian vendors -- and started selling phones themselves. Their offerings were better and more cost-effective. Interestingly, even in the premium smartphone segment -- phones priced at $400 or higher -- OnePlus, a Chinese phone manufacturer, outperformed Samsung and Apple in India in the most recent quarter.
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Two-thirds of India's Smartphone Market, the Second Largest in the World, is Now Run by Chinese Handset Makers

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  • So, essentially (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02, 2018 @01:02AM (#57240298)
    Chinese smartphone makers now rule the world's largest and the second largest smartphone markets? That is incredible to say the least.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      >_ Chinese smartphone makers now rule the world's largest and the second largest smartphone markets? That is incredible to say the least.

      No, it's far worse than that (or better, depending how you look at it).

      I'm in South America and we got two cars which were introduced in India first over here. They're sub-compacts in the American terminology, they start simple and are progressively improved, migrating to more expensive tiers as electronics and features are added.

      What's important is that India is an exc

    • Chinese smartphone makers now rule the world's largest and the second largest smartphone markets? That is incredible to say the least.

      I hate to say it, but it is a sad statement wrt to India (considering the enormous amount of talent in that country) that it could/would not develop a hardware manufacturing base capable of competing with their Chinese counterparts.

  • by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Sunday September 02, 2018 @01:08AM (#57240308)

    I had a Xiaomi 3S for two years, it is still a great phone, I've strapped it to the dog harness for GPS and telemetry when we're in the woods. I moved on to Note 5, also a great phone. Bonus: both are completely open handsets, no hackery to unlock and root, all kinds of roms available.

    Why would I ever look at a walled-garden or a locked phone where I'm getting a lot less but it costs three times more?

  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday September 02, 2018 @01:21AM (#57240342)

    What about Apple? Apple’s marketshare in India continues to fall as it hits 1% in Q2 [9to5mac.com]

    Whoops, that's not good, in the soon-to-be world's most populous nation.

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Going much higher than 1% would require slashing their profits, and selling at a lower price in India. If they did this, the phones would be exported to Europe en-masse to undercut the ones sold there at a higher price. Carrier-unlocked iPhones aren't otherwise region-locked, so there's little they could do to stop that.

        • Apple isn't doing well in China either.

          Having looked at the figures. I was surprised Apple is doing so well at 8%...clearly pandering to the Chinese Government is still profitable. Samsung are being demolished...and are desperate for a new strategy. Unlike Apple they are not a Chinese manufacturer. If there is news with China and Apple its they are not kicking butts and taking names. Apple only produce phones once a year, and that will hurt them the rest of the year. The fact it is only .3 percent of total market share and less than .1 to them s

          • Apple is limited in what it can do by the Chinese government. This is no secret.

            Stop thinking China, internally, is anything like a "Western-style" free market. It's not even close.

            It sometimes resembles a free market to those outside the country. But that's merely illusion created for international traders. Internally, it is very tightly government controlled. And there is no "intellectual property" at all... in fact other countries keep having to remind China -- sternly -- that it promised to honor
  • iPhones are too expensive for the mass market in India, due to huge tariffs.

  • Chinese smartphone makers are succeeding because they are focusing on marketshare only. While component makers understand this an extract profits from the underlying tech these devices are based on. That's the reason why Samsung and Sony make a lot more in semiconductors and sensors than smartphones.

    Huawei is the only Chinese company that can put up a fight in that sense.

  • Google does lots and lots of evil. And China is the Evil Empire. The two are made for each other.

    • Google does lots and lots of evil. And China is the Evil Empire. The two are made for each other.

      Ironically Google effectively shut down its Chinese operations after it discovered a cyberattack from within the country that targeted it and dozens of other companies. And while investigating the attack, Google found that the Gmail accounts of a number of Chinese human-rights activists had been hacked. It expected Microsoft and Apple to follow suit...but well money. At least Apple/Microsoft is there to actively censoring for the Chinese Government...because blood money.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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