Vivo represented 15.8 % of the Indian cellphone market within the third quarter of 2024 in line with IDC, comfortably overtaking Samsung. It’s no newcomer, both. Vivo was India’s third-place model way back to 2018, in line with Canalys.
It has produced some nice telephones and pushed the envelope in cellphone digicam tech particularly, claiming firsts for the usage of a gimbal sensor stabilization in 2020’s Vivo X50 Professional and, in a while, pixel shift within the Vivo X60 sequence.
In case you are amongst those that haven’t encountered a Vivo cellphone earlier than, you may assume it’s a neighborhood model, an Indian one. It isn’t. Vivo is from the BBK group of cellphone producers, alongside Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, and others. These are all Chinese language corporations, below a guardian firm giant sufficient to solid a Lovecraftian shadow. These Chinese language manufacturers are accountable for shaping the place the Indian cellphone market is in 2024.
“Due to low-cost information and the entry of the Chinese language manufacturers into India over the previous seven, eight years, [Chinese manufacturers] actually democratized the worth factors,” says Singh.
A decade or extra in the past, commerce reveals have been full of characteristic telephones made for creating markets like India. Characteristic cellphone dominance has been flipped, and India is now coming into a stage the place, identical to the West, the general public is more accepting of and extra in a position to purchase higher-priced phones.
“’Worth for cash’ has been the widespread psyche of an Indian client, however it’s shifting swiftly in direction of shopping for extra premium telephones,” says Neil Shah, vp at CounterPoint Analysis. “The cellphone has develop into central to each person, with the next ROI than even shopping for a automobile, home, or insurance coverage. Customers are seeing smartphones as extra of an funding alternative.” A cellphone, in India, can at occasions be every thing.”
The info backs that up. In keeping with Counterpoint, the common sale value of a smartphone in India has risen from $192 in Q3 2020 to $293 in the identical quarter in 2024.
It’s this impact that has helped Apple carry out so properly in India, with an virtually 60 % reported enhance in market share from Q3 2023 to 2024, in line with IDC figures.
“Contemplating that the common promoting value of Apple is so excessive, it is an achievement that Apple has finished properly prior to now few years,” says Singh. “One of many main causes is Apple is seen as an aspirational model in India. It has a model halo. All people would love to purchase an iPhone. Not everyone can afford one.”
