Samsung has lost its crown as the top smartphone seller in India for the first time in six years, as it was outsold by China's Xiaomi in the final quarter of 2017.Xiaomi's aggressively priced suite of high-spec handsets and market expansion strategy enabled it to take the top spot in the world's biggest smartphone market after China.
Counterpoint pegged Xiaomi's smartphone market share in India at 25 percent in the fourth quarter based on shipments, ahead of Samsung's 23 percent. Lenovo, Oppo and Vivo came in behind them, each with about 6 percent market share.However, it ranked Samsung as the top seller for the year as the South Korean company was well ahead of Xiaomi in the first half of 2017.Separately, research firm Canalys said Xiaomi shipped 8.2 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, while Samsung shipped 7.3 million.
The Chinese company, which is exploring a public listing and is now valued at close to $100 billion, entered India just over three years ago.Its strategy there has so far rested on flash sales on leading homegrown e-commerce player Flipkart and US tech giant Amazon.com's Indian site, an approach that helped it snatch market share without have to spend heavily on marketing.Samsung said in a statement that it led Indian smartphone sales in the September to November period, based on data by research firm GfK.
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