Driven by online sale festivals and new model launches, India`s smartphone market shipped a record 46.6 million units in the third quarter (Q3) of 2019, with 26.5 per cent quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and 9.3 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth, International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Monday. According to IDC`s "Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker", Xiaomi saw the highest ever smartphone shipments in a quarter with 12.6 million units, growing at 8.5 per cent YoY and the Redmi 7A and Redmi Note 7 Pro were the highest shipped models in the overall smartphone market.

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Vivo registered a strong YoY growth of 58.7 per cent in Q3 2019 on the back of its affordable Y series. The newly-launched exclusive online Z/U series accounted for more than 20 per cent of its overall shipments, thus, making it the third largest online vendor with a market share of 8.2 per cent in Q3 2019. Realme climbed to the fourth position in Q3 2019, as its shipments grew multifold YoY, driven by heavy shipments of its affordable C2 model and its newly launched 5 and 3i series.

The firm`s online share was at an all-time high of 26.5 per cent in Q3 2019, up from 16.5 per cent in the previous quarter.

"The continued aggression by the online platforms with attractive cashback and buyback offers as well as affordability schemes like no cost EMIs and financing options were key in taking the share of the online channel to a record high of 45.4 per cent with YoY growth of 28.3 per cent," Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Samsung was the only vendor amongst the top five to fall, dropping 8.5 per cent 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, but had a YoY growth of 92.3 per cent. 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.

The offline channel, however, continued to face challenges, leading to a 2.6 per cent 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 and 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 per cent in Q3 2019, on the back of affordability offers and 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. Interestingly, the low-end price segment of $200 accounted for 80 per cent of the overall India smartphone market in Q3 2019, and its 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 per cent in Q3 2019.

The fastest growing segment in this quarter was the $300-500 segment with double the shipments YoY as 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 per cent YoY growth in Q3 2019, with strong shipments of the Galaxy A50, Redmi Note 7 Pro and Vivo Z1 Pro.

The feature phone market, accounting for 43.3 per cent of the total mobile phone shipments, registered a 17.5 per cent YoY decline in Q3 2019 with shipments of 35.6 million units. Also, 4G-enabled feature phones declined 20.3 per cent YoY due to heavy inventory in the channel. The 2/2.5G market also saw a decline of 16.2 per cent in Q3 2019.