Chinese smartphone brands saw an increase in their market share in India in 2020, a year that was marked by deadly border clashes between Asian neighbors and backlash against the Chinese companies in India, as stated by the research firm Counterpoint. Chinese brands were commanding 75% of the India’s smartphone market in 2020 and upto 71% in 2019 and the highest since the year 2014.
Xiaomi Corp was the India’s top smartphone seller in 2020 with a market share of around 26% and that is a bit less than the 27% share a year earlier. Samsung Electronics of South Korea was the 2nd best brand with a share of 21%. The next biggest brands of India were Vivo, Realme and Oppo which were all Chinese as stated in the information by Counterpoint. Analyst Shilpi Jain stated in Counterpoint’s report that the anti-China sentiments highly subsided by the end of the year.
There was a skirmish between India and China at the disputed Himalayan border site that left 20 Indian soldiers dead in June 2020 and that fueled a wave of anti-China sentiment in India. After the backlash, Vivo dropped out of the title sponsorship of the most followed Indian Premier League cricket tournament in 2020, although it was able to secure sponsorship rights from 2018 through 2022.
The anti-China sentiment spurred a few Chinese companies to show their Indian-ness. The Indian website of Xiaomi still has a “Made in India” banner on its home page that was released last year. The total smartphone shipments in India reached around 150 million units in 2020 and fell down 4% a year earlier. Demand increased in the final quarter of 2020 during the festive season that started with Diwali in the month of November.
Counterpoint analyst Prachir Singh said that many new use cases like online education and increased content consumption were the main factors for the increased consumer demand.