38% smartphone sales in India are done online; Flipkart leads

E-commerce platforms have captured a record 38 per cent share of the total smartphone channels in India in the first quarter of 2018. One of the main reason behind this are the exclusive online launches done by the smartphone companies.
 
Flipkart continued its dominance in the online smartphone market with 54 per cent share, with Amazon at second place with 30 per cent followed by Mi.com with 14 per cent market share, according to Counterpoint Research's "Market Monitor" service.
 
IANS reported that Xiaomi led online platforms with a share of 57 per cent during Q1 2018, followed by Samsung (14 per cent) and Huawei (Honor) (8 per cent). 
 
"The E-commerce segment grew faster than the offline segment during Q1 2018. While the smartphone shipments in the offline segment declined by 3 per cent, the online segment grew by 4 per cent (Year-on-Year)," said Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint.  This was driven by the increase in the number of models launching on online platforms coupled with aggressive offers.
 
"Additionally, smartphone brands have now adopted a multi-channel strategy instead of relying on a single channel for distribution of their products and this has increased the competition over the past few quarters," Chauhan told IANS.

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According to the report, In 2018 Q1, close to 30 exclusive smartphone models were launched. The key attractions of the new launches are the full-screen displays, high capacity batteries and AI features like face recognition. 
 
Xiaomi Redmi 5A, Redmi Note 5, Redmi 4, Huawei Honor 9 Lite and Redmi Y1 are the top online smartphones in Q1 2018.