The online smartphone retail market was one of the biggest benefactors of pent-up market demand, as the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic receded. According to the latest smartphone market data released by industry tracker IDC, the Indian smartphone market saw an overall 86 percent growth over last year for the period between April and June, 2021. On top of this growth, it is the online smartphone market that grew the biggest, overtaking offline phone sales in India to register an overall market share of 51 percent during this quarter.
The growth in online sales of smartphones had an obvious factor contributing to it, with Covid-19 restrictions necessitating more online deliveries. While lockdown restrictions for the second wave were less stringent than the first wave in 2020, weekend curfews in rural regions have seemingly been a significant contributor to the decline in offline sales. As a result, online smartphone sales seemingly registered a 113 percent growth during this quarter. The growth may have also been fuelled by gradually increasing online shopping and payment trends, as more users continue to adopt digital payments and smartphones across India.
However, it will be interesting to see if the online smartphone retail market can sustain such growth in a year that may see fluctuation in demand among users. Navkendar Singh, research director of mobile devices at IDC India, says, “The second half of 2021 is likely to drop (in sales) in comparison to the same period last year, with lower demand, uncertainties around the third wave, persistent supply constraints, and rising component prices along with intensifying inflationary rates. Nevertheless, a rebound in 2022 will be possible with upgraders in the low-mid price segments, supply-led push of 5G devices, feature phone migration with new offerings expected in upcoming months and better supplies to market.”
The quarterly market tracker by IDC also states that during this quarter, India ranked fourth globally in its demand for 5G phones, behind China, USA and Japan in the first three places. The growth has come thanks to more Android OEMs pushing value for money 5G phones in the market already, in anticipation of an upcoming public 5G rollout in the months to come. In terms of overall market share, the top three vendors in India continued to be Xiaomi, Samsung and Vivo, although Vivo increased the gap between itself and fourth-placed Realme by a significant margin.
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