A few years ago seeing an opening for a premium smartphone without the premium price tag OnePlus made a push into India and have not looked back since. Counterpoint research have released the Indian sales results not just for Q4 but for the entire year overall.
In 2018 and in Q4 premium smartphone (pricing between ₹30,000-₹145,000) shipments in India achieved highest ever results increasing 8% YoY for the full year and 16% YoY for Q4 2018. At the top of these premium smartphone sales were three companies, Samsung, Apple and upstart OnePlus, accounting for 92% of that segment of the market.
Just as it did in Q2 and Q3 in 2018 OnePlus led the premium smartphone sales with its highest ever sales quarter, accounting 36% of the market share. The Q4 sales were driven by strong demand for the OnePlus 6T thanks to not just their marketing but a lot of word-of-mouth and product feedback. Their yearly sales of OnePlus 6 was the highest selling premium smartphone for the year in terms of shipments with the 6T coming in second followed by the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus.
Samsung accounted for 26% share of the premium smartphone market with its shipments growing 72% YoY in Q4 2018 lars Galaxy A9 release in that last quarter of the year. Showing how far OnePlus have come and taken over the market in the last three quarters of the year Samsung still led the results for the overall sales in 2018.
Both OnePlus and Samsung were ahead of a declining Apple market share which sat at 25% of the market in Q4 and 23% over the entire year. Apple’s sales were attributed to a larger price (no great surprise there) as they continue to pay a 20% import duty on their phones due to not manufacturing them in India. Apple are expected to have their market share decreased more in 2019 due to Huawei entering the market and the aggressive strategies from OnePlus, Samsung, Huawei and Google.
With OnePlus continually producing great top of the line hardware combined with their ever-improving, best-in-class software we expect OnePlus to continue to have tremendous success in one of the world biggest smartphone markets, India. Now if only they will move into Australia they can take over our inflated market too.
