It’s been common knowledge now for some time that Xiaomi has toppled Samsung’s position as the smartphone leader in the OND quarter of 2017.
For all the loyal Xiaomi fans out there who want to know how Xiaomi achieved this feat, it was attributed to Xiaomi’s higher sales volume over Samsung during the Oct-Dec quarter of 2017 in Maharashtra, which contributed as much as 13.7% to Xiaomi’s total sales volume during the quarter. Samsung sold 15.3% of its smartphones which was quite less than Xiaomi’s impressive sale of 31.2% of its smartphones. Xiaomi’s sales volume in the state was catalyzed by its popular Redmi Note 4 flagship.
During October and November 2017, Xiaomi opened two Mi Homes in Maharashtra, which helped it gain a foothold in the smartphone market of the state. To add to this, it recently opened its 3rd Mi Home in Thane, Maharashtra.
The other 3 players among the top 5 players in the smartphone market of Maharashtra were Vivo, Oppo, and Lenovo (including Motorola) in the 4th quarter of Maharashtra in 2017. Together, these top 5 smartphone performers struck a whopping 84% sale of their smartphones.
However, with the net subscriber addition during the quarter being low for Maharashtra, there was a decline of 362,420 subscribers, so the smartphone sales were mainly replacement or upgrade, the decline being caused due to a fall in the R-com and Airtel subscription during the 4Q 2017 quarter in Maharashtra.
The marketing team of Xiaomi gauged this market scenario intelligently and led the sales by affecting sales for replacements and upgrades for the discarded smartphones of its user base. These discontinued smartphones included Micromax ( including Yu ), which amounted to 26% of the discarded smartphones. The other smartphone brands that couldn’t live up to the consumer expectations were Intex, Karbonn, Sony Mobiles, and iBall, jointly amounting to 66.5% of the discarded smartphones during that quarter in Maharashtra. The preference of Chinese and global Tier brands like Samsung over the Indian brands is mainly caused due to the increasing demand in the Indian smartphone user base for 4G smartphones, where the Indian brands have been struggling to keep pace with their international competitors.
Recognizing this market demand by the increasing urban population in India as a profitable business opportunity and promptly responding to it, Xiaomi was the first brand to introduce a 4G smartphone quite affordably priced below Rs 10,000. Not stopping there, it followed this up with a string of reasonably priced but high-speed devices ranging from Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000. Sitting pretty in its numero uno position in the smartphone market in India, Xiaomi exemplifies its own tagline: “Rise to Power”.
