India is the second-largest smartphone market in the world and a suitable battleground for smartphone manufacturers to grab the market share. After the success of Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi in the budget smartphone segment, another smartphone brand Realme competed in the space to become the fastest-growing smartphone brand in India. However, the recent IDC data reveals that Realme's growth has met a downfall.
As per the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) report, after the festive season from September till November 2019, Realme became the only brand which lost significant market share, whereas Xiaomi and Samsung increased their respective market shares during the same period.
Ups and downs for Realme
Earlier in the year, Realme was on a high tide. The Counterpoint Research also showed that Realme's market share grew by from 7 per cent in Q1 2019 to 9 per cent in Q2 2019. According to an earlier IDC report, Realme registered the highest year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2019 with a staggering 401.3 per cent spike. Realme's market share also reached 14.3 per cent from 3.1 per cent in the same quarter last year.
However, the current statistics aren't looking so great for the brand. In the festive month of September, Realme's shipments peaked with 16.74 per cent market share but declined drastically the next month to 9.33 per cent. The IDC data shows that Realme's market share fell to 8.23 per cent in November month.
Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC said that most of the online buying took place around the festive season and since Realme is an online-heavy brand, it saw a jump in September, reported ETtelecom.
Good news for Xiaomi
Xiaomi's India head Manu Kumar Jain congratulated his team over the sales number for the company after the festive season. Joshi said that the Xiaomi's success can be credited to the fact that it is spread across channels and came up with offers across offline and online channels.
A Xiaomi spokesperson told the publication that the October-December quarter was good for the company and it sold over one million Redmi Note 8 series in India. The sale came within a month of its launch.
