Apple has once again claimed the top spot in the premium smartphone segment of India, with a whopping 75.6% share in the fourth quarter of 2019.
In the latest report by IDC, Apple claimed over three-fourths of the premium market, which is defined as the smartphones that are priced over $500/Rs 35,000. Almost all of Apple’s smartphones are above this price threshold, save for those which are a few generations old and have received multiple price cuts.
The credit for Apple’s impressive performance goes to the strong sales of the iPhone 11 and the price cuts on the iPhone XR due to local manufacturing, which made it the best selling iPhone in the country for Q2 and Q3 of 2019.
The fourth quarter also saw the average selling price of smartphones in India rise to an all-time high of $172(~Rs 12,300). The quarter ended with the budget segment(sub $200) claiming 79% of the market, followed by the mid-range($200-500) segment at 19.3%, which is 55.2% higher than last year. As always, the premium segment accounted for just about 2.7% of the Indian market.
With this, Apple claims a strong 2% foothold in the world’s second-largest smartphone market, a place where it was struggling just a year ago with declining profits and a sub 1% market share. The report also states that the Apple Watch and AirPods were also selling well in India thanks to price reductions on older models and promotional offers by banks and e-tailers on the newer ones.
As for the Indian smartphone market as a whole for 2019, Xiaomi claimed the top spot with a 28.6% market share, followed by Samsung, Vivo and Oppo at 20.3%, 15.6% and 10.7% respectively. Interestingly, Realme held the fifth spot with a 10.6% market share, which is a whopping 263.5% YoY growth.
