Samsung narrowly beats Xiaomi for another quarterly victory in key Indian smartphone market

Whether or not they’re actually successful in India, pretty much all of the world’s major smartphone vendors clearly care a lot about their performance and progress (or lack thereof) in the single most populous country around the globe. That’s obviously because there are so many prospective mobile device buyers out there, but also due to the incredible resilience of the Indian smartphone market, which used to show promising signs of growth when shipments were falling nearly everywhere else.

Samsung vs the rest

The world’s number one smartphone vendor leads the hierarchy in India with a pretty narrow advantage over silver and bronze medalists Xiaomi and Vivo respectively after more or less doing the same in both Q1 and Q2 2023 as well.

But it was actually Xiaomi that took home this title back in Q3 2022, and compared to that period, Samsung only lost 3 percent of its regional shipments while the former champion slipped by no less than 17 percent.

In fourth and fifth places, Realme and especially Oppo suffered pretty serious declines in Q3 2023 compared to the same timeframe of 2022, which further highlights the solid performance of several brands from the “others” division, including OnePlus and Motorola.

Wait, where’s Apple?

Interestingly, companies like Oppo are also starting to increase their focus on the country’s premium segment, seeking to prioritize profits and profit margins over volumes. Of course, you can always have the best of both worlds too… if your name is Samsung and both your Galaxy S high-enders and Galaxy A mid-rangers are selling like hotcakes.