Online smartphone shipments in India grows 65% YoY in Q2 2018, Xiaomi leads with 54% share: Canalys

The online smartphone market in India is expected to surpass 15 million units in Q3 2018 with a growth of more than 25% year-on-year and expected to account a record 38% of the total smartphone market. In Q2 2018, online channels including Flipkart, Amazon, PayTm Mall, mi.com, OnePlus.com grabbed 35% share, growing 65% year-on-year. Shipments sold directly via vendors and websites accounted for 9% of all online shipments, while retailers such as Flipkart, Amazon, etc. took the remaining 91%. While almost all vendors in India have some sort of online presence, Xiaomi led the market by a mile, grabbing a commendable 54%, followed by Samsung with 13% and Huawei was third with 7%. Thanks to the festive season, Flipkart and Amazon are expected to stimulate demand with aggressive offers during their festival sale. This adding to the launch of sub-brands targeted squarely at the online consumers. The Xiaomi's Pocophone and OPPO's Realme are expected to boost shipments in Q3 and Q4, 2018. As of Q2 2018, 62% of smartphones were shipped to distributors in India and eventually resold to lower-tier channel partners and retailers. Asus who was earlier a 100% distributor led company until Q1 2018, revamped its go-to-market and moved to 100% online-only ...