Samsung has taken the top spot in Q3 2022, which is between October – December 2022. The South Korean smartphone brand has reportedly sold 6.7 million units for a market share of 21 per cent.

By Sneha Saha: Which is the top smartphone brand in India? Well, if the question was asked a couple of months ago, the answer would have been different. But the answer to this question is totally different now. Research firm Canalys has revealed the top smartphone brand in India in quarter four of 2022. The list is topped by Samsung for the first time since Q3 2017. Now, that’s a really long time.

According to Canalys, Samsung has taken the top spot in Q3 2022, which is between October – December 2022. The South Korean smartphone brand has reportedly sold 6.7 million units for a market share of 21 per cent. Samsung is followed by Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme and then come others. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo takes the second spot with 6.4 million units shipped during the months between October – December. The report states that Vivo has sold these numbers of units primarily through offline stores.

The report also highlights that Xiaomi has lost the top position after 20 quarters straight, which is not very pleasant news for the brand. As per Canalys, Xiaomi shipped 5.5 million units during Q4 2022. Next on the list come Oppo and Realme with shipments of 5.7 million and 2.7 million, respectively.

Sanyam Chaurasia, an analyst at Canalys said, “vendors that were focused predominantly on online channels suffered from a poor e-commerce festive sales performance in Q4 2022.” “Xiaomi aimed to clear out inventory of its older models using the e-commerce channel. But, due to poor ecommerce festive sales performance, Xiaomi and Realme saw significant stockpiling of their products in online channels in Q4 2022. At the same time, in tier-three and tier-four cities, Vivo and OPPO focused on offline channels, which helped them to be the only vendors to grow year on year. With strength in the retail channel to drive volume, Samsung continues to target consumers across routes to market,” he added.

The same report also revealed that India’s smartphone shipments fell to 15.6 million units in 2022, which is a total decline of 6 per cent when compared to the previous year. “India was better positioned to weather the global downturn than other markets. But domestic consumer spending cooled in the last few months of 2022,” the report noted.

“Even during the festive season, the domestic market suffered a fall in transactions, retail spending and electronic imports. In 2022, consumers already had up-to-date technology that they had bought during the pandemic, thereby delaying further purchases. This led to smartphone brands struggling with inventory management because demand was subdued. Vendor channel management strategies became more important than ever. The mid-to-high-end segment performed well this year, which will further catalyze the upgrade cycle,” Chaurasia added.