Three major smartphone players namely Xiaomi, Samsung and Realme — captured 57 per cent of the Indian festive sales volumes as smartphone sales in the Diwali season (October 9-November 8) witnessed an upsurge by at least 26 per cent year-on-year (YoY) compared to the festive period last year.

The market research firm Counterpoint Research has reportedly published a report by the name “Market Pulse”, which states that the increase in smartphone sales has been profoundly ignited by a series of online sales promoted by major e-commerce players like Amazon India and Flipkart. Apart from significant sales campaigns, OEM promotions (such as Mi.com) offered deep discounts and no-cost EMI on debit and credit cards.

Flipkart was the leader while launching the most number of exclusive smartphones through its online platform while Amazon maintained a competitive edge over the others owing to their launch of OnePlus 6T.

Xiaomi appeared as a domineering force with their path-breaking performance in terms of market sales, thereby maintaining its lead over its competitors. Smartphone player Realme fared excellently in the market, emerging as the second largest brand across the e-commerce channels.

Xiaomi extended the gap with Samsung which performed well in terms of sales in offline channels, capturing 30 per cent share.

But what inspires everyone is the growth story of Realme. It delivered a record festive performance as a newly launched player. Its market share became 9 per cent, marching past the stalwarts like Vivo, Lenovo. It jumped to the third spot on the basis of its overall sales volume performance.

While Huawei delivered a fantastic performance, Vivo proved its mettle in the offline market, maintaining its lead over most of the Chinese manufacturers.

Emerging brands such as OnePlus, Pocophone, Asus and HMD Nokia also received attraction from the customers during the festive season mainly because of the new launches ahead of the festive sale period. Meanwhile, World’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, Apple recorded a tepid response for their newly launched iPhone models.