Samsung sees a sharp decline
Meanwhile, Samsung was the only vendor amongst the top five to fall, dropping 8.5 percent YoY in Q3 2019. The lag between older Galaxy A series (Galaxy A10, 50, etc.) and the refreshed Galaxy As (Galaxy A10s, A50s etc.) series just before the Diwali quarter led to this sharp decline.
Oppo also slipped to the fifth position in Q3 2019 in the India smartphone market, but had a YoY growth of 92.3 percent. Its A5s was the fifth-highest shipped model in the overall smartphone market. The company became the second-largest vendor in the fast-growing $300-500 segment on the back of its newly launched Reno 2 series.
Offline market continues to face challenges
The offline channel, however, continued to face challenges, leading to a 2.6 percent YoY decline in Q3 2019. Even as the offline channel players tried to match their offers in line with the online players, they fell short of deals that a consumer could grab in the online space. They were still dealing with leftover inventory from previous quarters.
In the premium ($500+) segment, Apple continued to dominate with a market share of 51.3 percent in Q3 2019. Price drops on previous-generation models like the iPhone XR, iPhone 8 and iPhone 7 (128GB), along with the newly launched iPhone 11/Pro series helped a lot.
Interestingly, the low-end price segment of $200 accounted for 80 percent of the overall India smartphone market in Q3 2019. The share dropped by five percentage points YoY at the cost of the mid-range segment of $200-$500, gaining six percentage points to 18.9 percent in Q3 2019.
Fastest growing segment
The fastest-growing segment in this quarter was the $300-500 segment with double the shipments YoY. Key models like OnePlus 7, Redmi K20 Pro and Vivo V15 Pro had good traction. The $200-300 segment was the second-fastest-growing segment with 47.8 percent YoY growth in Q3 2019, with strong shipments of the Galaxy A50, Redmi Note 7 Pro and Vivo Z1 Pro.
The feature phone market accounts for 43.3 percent of the total mobile phone shipments. It has registered a 17.5 percent YoY decline in Q3 2019, with shipments of 35.6 million units. Also, 4G-enabled feature phones declined 20.3 percent YoY due to heavy inventory in the channel. The 2/2.5G market also saw a decline of 16.2 percent in Q3 2019.