1 in every 4 smartphones sold in India this year will be from an 'emerging' brand

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The emerging brands are gaining momentum rapidly in the burgeoning Indian smartphone market. So much so that a new CMR study on Emerging Smartphone Brands says that 1 in every 4 smartphones sold in India this year will be from an 'emerging' brand!

The report says that 15.2 million smartphones shipped in 2015 were from emerging brands and the number is set to double this year at 32.5 million units, representing 25% of the market.

CMR defines ‘Emerging’ brands as those which were launched in India not before 2013.

In 2015, Xiaomi led the market followed by Gionee and Panasonic with 23.6%, 14.7% and 11.3% market shares, respectively, within the emerging brands. Micromax’s Yu was the only existing Indian brand in the leadership ranks with Reliance’s LYF as the latest entry.

Gionee and Oppo are the only two brands that were in leadership positions in all the four major price brackets.

Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst Telecoms at CMR said, “The emerging brands do not remain confined only up to giving competition to the incumbents and offering a wide variety of options for prospective buyers to choose from. But these brands are also focusing on offering value for money products, so that buyers could get more and best of specifications at affordable price points.”

“Further these brands have been trend setters like – Xiaomi introducing the concept of flash sales, OnePlus going by invitation mode only and Oppo boldly focusing on the camera feature and calling its phone as the camera phone,” added he.

But, there has been a steady decline in the number of new brands getting launched every year. For example, as compared to 74 brands in 2013, there were only 21 new smartphone brands added in 2015.

Krishna Mukherjee, Analyst Telecoms at CMR  said, “We expect in 2016, there could be further decline in the new brand additions in the country and there could be around 15 smartphone brands added this year, but India will continue to attract all such brands that intend to go global and it would definitely remain the second largest market for several brands after they successfully play in their home markets.”