The Indian smartphone market has recorded a decline of 5% Year-on-Year for the third quarter of 2021, after months of steady growth. According to a report by Canalys, the market witnessed a total shipment of 47.5 million units during the quarter.
The report adds that the decline of the Indian smartphone market can be attributed to two reasons — first is that the entry-level smartphones are facing supply constraints due to the global chip shortage. The second reason is that last year there was a lot of pent-up demand after reopening the economy that led to high volume of sales during Q3 2020.
Xiaomi still led the way with 11.2 million shipments for the period followed by Samsung with 9.1 million and vivo with 8.1 million. Realme took up the fourth spot with 7.5 million shipments while Oppo had 6.2 million to round out the top-five. None of the aforementioned brands saw positive annual growth figures with Xiaomi and Realme in particular experiencing a 14% decline.
Canalys says that vaccination played a key role in the increase of smartphone demand in India in the third quarter of 2021. But unfortunately, the shipments fell short of 5% compared to last year due to the shortage of components.
Looking ahead to Q4, Canalys predicts that the supply chain challenges seen in the past quarter will continue to affect vendors resulting in longer lead times and higher retail prices for consumers. One possible solution is to prioritize online channel sales which allow for margin buffers and less price disruption.
