OnePlus beats Samsung to lead India's premium smartphone segment

Final updated: July 31st, 2018 at 15:13 UTC+01:00

The Q2 2018 shipment numbers published so far have brought good news for Samsung in Republic of india. The company regained some of the lost ground and is showing signs of market dominance once again. In the premium smartphone segment (>INR thirty,000 or $437), nevertheless, information technology seems Samsung is having a tough fourth dimension in Bharat, at least according to a report from Counterpoint Research.

As per the latest data from Counterpoint Research, OnePlus reportedly surpassed Samsung to emerge as India's leading premium smartphone brand in Q2 2018. Strong demand for the OnePlus 6 has helped the Chinese company annals a staggering 446% YoY growth and capture 40% of the market share in the premium smartphone segment.

OnePlus 6 was the acknowledged premium smartphone

Samsung settled for the second spot with 34% market share, a drop of 25% when compared to terminal twelvemonth. As confirmed by Samsung in its Q2 2018 earnings, Galaxy S9/S9+ sales have been slow globally, and the aforementioned applies to India every bit well. Even Samsung's curvation rival, Apple, had a weak quarter with market place share dropping to 14% – its lowest ever in the country.

In terms of private models, the OnePlus 6 accounted for 30% of all shipments and topped the charts, while the Milky way S9+ came in second at 12%. Even the older OnePlus 5T fared well to assist OnePlus secure two of the top-three spots.

The written report says the premium smartphone segment in India grew by 19% YoY and 10% sequentially during the second quarter. The growth is primarily in the sub-INR 40,000 (~$583) category where OnePlus and other smaller brands have positioned their products. It shows that consumers are unwilling to pay essentially more than for Samsung and Apple unless there is strong production differentiation.

While Xiaomi is going after Samsung'south volume, OnePlus is going after its profits. It is articulate Chinese brands are the biggest threat to Samsung's potency in Republic of india. The visitor has done reasonably well to counter Xiaomi in the last quarter by launching new models, simply that's not a strategy Samsung can easily adopt for the premium segment.