Vivo Passes Samsung in India Smartphone Shipments in Q1, Xiaomi Retains Top Spot: Canalys

Vivo has shipped more smartphones than Samsung in the first quarter of 2020, as per market research firm Canalys. With this, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer climbed to the second spot for the first time with a market share of 19.9 percent, while Samsung is now in third place with a market share of nearly 18.9 percent. The top spot is retained by Xiaomi which shipped roughly 10.3 million smartphones (with a market share of 30.6 percent) in the first quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, India's overall smartphone shipments were up by nearly 12 percent year-on-year in this quarter, despite the impact of a nationwide lockdown due to the novel coronavirus in the final week of March.

The data was presented by Canalys, which in a report also presented the year-on-year data. According to the report, the top five smartphone manufacturers in terms of shipment in India in the previous quarter were Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Realme, and Oppo.

Canalys shows Q1 2020 smartphone shipment data
Photo Credit: Canalys

As per the to the report, Xiaomi shipped nearly 10.3 million smartphones in the Q1 2020 against the 9.5 million units in the same quarter last year. Despite the marginal growth (8.4 percent) in shipments, Xiaomi's market share fell from 31.4 percent in Q1 2019 to 30.6 percent in Q1 2020.

The big winner in this quarter is Vivo whose smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2020 grew 48.9 percent from 4.5 million in the same quarter last year to 6.7 million. Moreover, in the first quarter of 2020, Vivo had a market share of 19.9 percent. Speaking more on Vivo's latest feat, Canalys Analyst Madhumita Chaudhary said that the growth in shipments is largely attributed to the "planned stockpiles ahead of the high-profile Indian Premier League (IPL)." The company is IPL's title sponsor till 2022. Chaudhary cautioned that as IPL is postponed due to the coronavirus lockdown, "Vivo will struggle to see a quick sell-through when the lockdown lifts."

Samsung shipped 6.3 million smartphones in India in Q1 2020, Canalys said, down 13.7 percent from 7.3 million smartphones in the same quarter last year. Right after the Samsung, Realme and Oppo secured the fourth and the fifth spot, respectively. According to the report, Realme's year-on-year shipment grew by nearly 200 percent (to 3.9 million smartphones) while Oppo's year-on-year shipment rose by 22.4 percent (to 3.5 million smartphones).

Will OnePlus 8 series be able to take on iPhone SE (2020), Samsung Galaxy S20 in India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.