India has emerged as one of the fastest rising smartphone markets in the last 10 years, posting growth for each quarter even as mobile phone orders slowed or dropped elsewhere around the world. But, the second-biggest smartphone market in the globe is starting to feel the coronavirus pinch as well.
Smartphone deliveries in the country were down 48 percent in the first half compared with the same period from the previous year, the most abrupt decline one of the rare growing markets has witnessed in a long while, research group Canalys disclosed on Friday.
Roughly 17.3 million smartphone units have been rolled out in the second quarter this year, falling from 33 million in the second quarter last year, and 33.5 million in the first quarter this year, the research firm stated.
Smartphones were classified as non-essential items during the nationwide lockdown and even corporate behemoths such as Amazon and Flipkart were not allowed to distribute them within the country.
This impasse on the local market lasted until mid-May, when shipments resumed, but the timing was not exactly ideal for smartphone makers as they were still having difficulties trying to normalize their own supply chains and output after the huge domestic impact from the virus within China itself, which were hardest during the first quarter this year.
For context, during the period, local Chinese smartphone orders fell 18 percent year-on-year, and global shipments in the entire smartphone sector dropped 13 percent.
Madhumita Chaudhary, a Canalys analyst, said that it has been a shaky road to recovery for the smartphone market in India. While most vendors saw a crest in revenue as soon as markets opened, production plants struggled with manpower deficit in addition to new policies around manufacturing that resulted to lower output.
Canalys said that despite the massive lockdown, Xiaomi could keep its dominance in the Indian smartphone market. China's top smartphone vendor delivered 5.3 million units in the quarter that ended in June 2020. Xiaomi has also cornered 32 percent of the domestic market.
India's smartphone market soared by a slight 4 percent year-on-year in the quarter ended March 31, research group Counterpoint recently said. The deliveries rose yearly in January and February when several companies unveiled their smartphones and aggressive promotional plans.
In comparison, China -- the biggest smartphone market in the world -- only had an 18 percent decline in deliveries in the quarter ended March, the period when the nation was heavily battered by the coronavirus. In the first quarter, when India was spared by the disease, smartphone deliveries rose by around 4 percent in the country.
