Indian smartphone market saw highest ever Q2 shipment of 36.9 million in 2019

New Delhi: Indian smartphone market saw highest ever second quarter shipment of 36.9 million in 2Q19, with a 9.9 percent year-on-year (YoY) and 14.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, as per a report by the International Data Corporation's (IDC).

IDC in its 'Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker' said a total of 69.3 million mobile phones were shipped to India in the second quarter of 2019, which was up 7.6 percent over the previous quarter.

“Despite the efforts towards multi-channel retailing by almost all vendors, the online channel continued its growth momentum fueled by multiple new launches, attractive offers and affordability schemes like EMIs/cashbacks. This resulted in YoY growth of 12.4 percent for the online channel with an overall share of 36.8 percent in 2Q19,” says Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

Offline channel registered an 8.5 percent YoY growth driven by the new launches in Samsung Galaxy A series, marketing activities by vivo during IPL (Indian cricket league) and Xiaomi’s growing multichannel distribution, IDC said.

However, the feature phone market continued its decline with 32.4 million-unit shipments, registering a drop of 26.3 percent YoY in 2Q19.

This was due to lower shipments of 4G-enabled feature phones with 40.3 percent YoY decline in the second quarter.

The 2G feature phone segment also declined as challenges remain for Indian brands along with small players facing heat owing to duty hikes on imports, IDC said.