Samsung seems to have enjoyed the lion’s share of success with the sales of Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9 series in India.
This insight comes from a Counterpoint report, which also states that Apple has fallen down the pecking order to number three, behind OnePlus in the country. The demand for iPhone 8 and iPhone X, according to them, was not matched with the units shipped by Apple, and later on, their prices were increased to meet the revised import duty norms.
The report also claims that OnePlus 5T is the reason why OnePlus managed to swap places with Apple in the premium smartphone segment in India over the last quarter.
All this clearly reiterate,s that the high-end phone market in India is predominantly covered by three brands; Samsung, OnePlus and Apple. The likes of Sony, HTC and even HMD Global’s Nokia, it seems have found it hard to break the stranglehold of the three top brands.
But with launches of Huawei’s P20 Pro, LG G7 and even more Nokia phones in the latter part of the year expected, things could definitely look different by end of 2018.
This pattern has become quite regular for Apple now, who have decided against launching a new product during the first part of the year. This has come to Samsung and even OnePlus’ advantage, as this graph clearly suggests. Interestingly, the report has no mention of Google Pixel 2XL, which was also introduced during the same period.
While Apple claims to have sold millions of iPhone X over the past quarter, its figures for India still paint the same picture.
Apple’s share in the premium segment dipped as the volumes dipped by a massive 55 percent due to decline in shipments for its iPhone 8 and X series. Additionally, the increase in import duty on CBUs to 20 percent during the quarter, led to increase in prices of already expensive iPhones.Counterpoint Report
During the launch of the iPhone X, we did notice that many stores weren’t stocked with a lot of iPhone X units, and this is likely to have played into Samsung’s hand. With the OnePlus 6 launch not far away, it’s possible that more people might be holding on to their money to get the latest phone from the brand.
There have been strong suggestions that by making the iPhone 6 and the rumoured iPhone SE2 in India, Apple could offset its lack of demand by adding more volume into its portfolio.
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