The race to no.1: The Samsung, Xiaomi story

The Mobile Phone Industry in India has been a volatile one. We have all seen how brands like Nokia, followed by Samsung, and for a short period Micromax, failed to retain their No. 1 position for long. If one goes by the data released by various agencies, it seems Samsung has displaced Xiaomi from the No. 1 slot in Q4, 2022. Some agencies go to the extent of saying that Xiaomi has even lost the No. 2 position to Vivo.

While becoming No. 1 in a specific quarter may be a one-off scenario, most trade analyst forecast Samsung retaining its No. 1 position in 2023. Even my own survey conducted on Linkedin, showed close to 80% of the people (mostly from the industry), putting Samsung at the top in 2023. Even if one goes by data, one will see how Xiaomi’s market shares has declined from ≈ 30% in 2020 to ≈ 20% in 2022. Samsung in the same period has been steady at ≈ 18%.