A few weeks back, research firm Counterpoint reported that OnePlus led the premium segment of Indian smartphone market for the second quarter in a row. It also said that OnePlus 6 swept away the most sales in this segment.
And now, International Data Corporation or IDC has also shared its Q3 results of Indian smartphone market. Like Counterpoint, IDC also says that OnePlus led the said segment and had a 37% market share in India.
IDC further said that OnePlus was followed by Apple at 33% and Samsung at 26% and 7%. IDC has also said that OnePlus also led the shipments in the said quarter in India.
This observation is different from Counterpoint’s, which had reported a 28% market share for Samsung and 25% for Apple. Counterpoint had also said that Samsung managed to grab the second place because of sales of its Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy A8 Star smartphones.
Speaking on OnePlus dominating the premium smartphone market in India, Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, IDC India said, “OnePlus climbed to the leadership position at the back of OnePlus 6, surpassing Samsung and Apple. With its dedicated community building activities and high decibel promotional activities on social media platforms, the vendor has been gradually scaling up in volumes.”
This year, the premium smartphone market in India saw a number of new additions with the likes of Vivo Nex, Oppo Find X, Huawei Nova 3, Asus Zenfone 5Z and LG G7+ ThinQ. Most of these were priced in way that they posed a direct competition to OnePlus 6.
It is worth noticing that recent reports have said that Apple’s yearly sales in India will be declining for the first time in four years. While some analysts have said the high pricing and lack of new features in the new models are responsible for it, others have blamed the sliding value of Rupee against the Dollar for it.
Apple has also increased prices of certain devices in India recently and has cited the value of Rupee going down as the reason for it.
If the price of OnePlus smartphones remains unchanged, this may prove to beneficial for company’s results in Q4 2018.
But then, most analysts also believe that Apple will revive its sales in India and its brand value will act as an added advantage.
We are waiting to see which company emerges as the dominant one in Q4 2018 and it will be interesting to see how they plan to compete with each other.
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