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India’s smartphone shipments fell to 151.6 million units in 2022, declining by 6 per cent compared with 2021, according to the latest Canalys research report. The market also suffered its first-ever drop in shipments in the fourth-quarter holiday period, falling by 27 per cent to 32.4 million.

Samsung took the number one spot from October to December (Q4) 2022 for the first time since July-September 2017, shipping 6.7 million units for a market share of 21 percent. The second place went to Vivo, which shipped 6.4 million units, mainly via offline channels. After 20 quarters, Xiaomi lost its leadership position in Q4 2022 and fell to third place with shipments of 5.5 million units.

For full-year 2022, Xiaomi was still the number one vendor. Oppo and Realme remained in fourth and fifth place, with shipments of 5.4 million and 2.7 million units respectively.

“India was better positioned to weather the global downturn than other markets. But domestic consumer spending cooled in the last few months of 2022. Even during the festive season, the domestic market suffered a fall in transactions, retail spending and electronic imports,” said Sanyam Chaurasia, Analyst at Canalys.

“The mid-to-high-end segment performed well this year, which will further catalyze the upgrade cycle,” Chaurasia added.

According to Chaurasia, Vendors that were focused predominantly on online channels suffered from a poor ecommerce festive sales performance in Q4 2022. Xiaomi aimed to clear out inventory of its older models using the ecommerce channel. But, due to poor ecommerce festive sales performance, Xiaomi and realme saw significant stockpiling of their products in online channels in Q4 2022.

At the same time, in tier-three and tier-four cities, vivo and OPPO focused on offline channels, which helped them to be the only vendors to grow year on year. With strength in the retail channel to drive volume, Samsung continues to target consumers across routes to market, he said.

Canalys also expects moderate growth in the Indian smartphone market in 2023 fueled by a replacement cycle driven by 5G devices, state government deals, smartphone penetration and the introduction of new use cases.

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