2020 has been a harsh year for many reasons and a country which has seen immense growth in the smartphone market has faced a slowdown last year, according to the latest report revealed by IDC.


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The top five vendors of the year were Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Realme and Oppo. While Xiaomi’s performance was led by the Redmi sub-brand, Samsung saw some success with the Galaxy M series. Vivo had strong growth in the offline channel, whereas Realme saw impressive growth in online sales and affordable C-series phones.


As per the estimates revealed by the research firm,  the handset market in the country fell by almost 2% YoY with 150 million units. “Stay-at-home mandates, remote work, remote education, travel restrictions, and manufacturing shutdowns led to a sluggish H1'20 (-26% YoY decline), particularly impacting 2Q20. However, H2'20 recovered, with 19% YoY growth, as markets reopened gradually,” stated the report.


The report further added that the 4Q20 (October-December) time frame witnessed record shipment of 45 million devices, with 21% YoY growth.


However, IDC predicts that a stronger market acceleration in 2021 will be led by upgraders. “The rebound of the smartphone market in the latter half of 2020 underscores the importance of devices in our day-to-day lives. In 2021, IDC expects the smartphone market to grow in high single-digit YoY, driven majorly by upgrading consumers, in the mid-range segment and affordable 5G offerings (~US$250). Also, revamped offline channel play is anticipated, to bring back growth in the very important brick and mortar counters for long term sustainability,” says Navkendar Singh, Research Director, Client Devices & IPDS, IDC India.


On handsets, IDC added that MediaTek processor-based smartphone shipments led with a share of 43%, closely followed by Qualcomm at 40%.