India's smartphone shipments crossed 150 million units in 2020

With high consumer demand created by e-learning and work from home, smartphone shipments in India counted over 150 million units with a year-on-year decline of 4 per cent.

Based on the latest research by Counterpoint's Market Monitor service, India's mobile handset shipment declined 9 per cent compared with last year due to weakening in feature phone shipments. Feature phone market alone had a decline of 20 per cent. However, Itel grew 26 per cent in the feature phone segment and became the market leader in 2020.

"The Indian smartphone market maintained its momentum in the fourth quarter of 2020 after a record-breaking third quarter. As Diwali was in mid-November this year, we witnessed high shipments during October as well. The overall market crossed 150 million units in 2020 driven by high consumer demand post-lockdown," Prachir Singh, a senior research analyst, commented in a statement.

Last year the Indian market had tallied 4 million units of 5G smartphone shipments driven by OnePlus and Apple. Based on estimates, 5G shipments are expected to rise nine times to reach 38 million units in 2021.

In Q4, Xiaomi topped with 13 per cent growth compared with last year followed by Samsung which had 30 per cent growth.

While Samsung recaptured the second spot in the Indian market last year, Realme crossed count of 20 million units and exhibited a growth of 22 per cent. For the first time, Apple crossed shipments of 1.5 million in a single quarter and registered 93 per cent yearly growth and 171 per cent quarterly growth. The launch of the iPhone 12, aggressive offers on the iPhone SE 2020 and iPhone 11, along with online expansion has been identified as the reasons for this growth. Besides, OnePlus also had an immense growth rate of 200 per cent in Q4 driven by its mid-range Nord series and the newly launched 8T series.