Since the introduction in recent years of smartphones in India, it was expected that a market with more than 1.200 million inhabitants, was gaining positions in the telephony market to become one of the main markets. That date has arrived and according to the latest Canalys report, India has just overtaken the United States, becoming the second largest smartphone market in the world, a ranking that is led by China and that will likely remain until the end of days.
According to Canalys, during the last quarter, almost 40 million smartphones have been sold in the country, representing 23% annual growth compared to the same quarter last year. Currently there are more than 100 different brands, many of them Asian, that sell their products in China and each quarter this number is increasing. Although the distribution channels in the country are not very simple, the number of inexpensive devices is very large, the low rate of smartphones in the country together with the arrival of LTE networks they are the main drivers of high demand.
At the moment both Samsung and Xiaomi, who have shipped 9.4 and 9.2 million devices during the last quarter, account for half of the sales of smart devices in the country, although Xiaomi's growth in the last year threatens to overtake Samsung if things continue at this rate. The Chinese faces Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo, especially the first two, have also seen how the shipments of their terminals have tripled from one year to the next.
For now, Apple continues to rely on authorized resellers in the country, until the remodeling / construction works of the first own Apple Stores in the country are completed. It should be remembered that Apple has had to make a significant investment in the country, moving the production of some terminals such as the iPhone SE to India, in order to obtain approval from the government and thus be able to have the necessary permits to be able to sell their products in the country.