Xiaomi India Says It Doesn’t Expect Economic Slowdown to Impact Smartphones

With economic slowdown beginning to adversely affect several industries in India, Xiaomi India said on Wednesday that smartphone sales would remain insulated from the impact as the festive season inches closer.

The India smartphone market saw its highest-ever shipment of 36.9 million in the second quarter (Q2) of 2019 -- with 9.9 percent year-on-year (YoY) and 14.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

"We keep hearing regarding the economic slowdown at the macro level. From our perspective, we rely on third-party agencies to understand in which direction the market is heading," Raghu Reddy, Head of Categories and Online Sales, Xiaomi India, told IANS in New Delhi.

"We have seen smartphone market growing at over 8-9 percent in the first half of the year and based on these figures, we expect same growth, even more, in the upcoming festive season," Reddy added.

According to IDC, Xiaomi saw its shipment volume grow by 4.8 percent (YoY) in Q2. The Chinese smartphone maker led the market with 28.3 percent market share, followed by Samsung at 25.3 percent.

"People cannot live without smartphones. If an existing phone stops working, one would buy a new one. We believe it would be the last sector to get impacted,' said Reddy, adding that not just smartphones, but Xiaomi TVs would also do well in terms of sales.

According to the IDC, Xiaomi's smartphones ranked first in India in terms of shipments for eight consecutive quarters.

"We had a good start in the TV segment with shipping 2 million TVs. According to IDC, we have 39 percent share of the smart TV market in India and hopefully, this trend would continue for us," Reddy told IANS.

In terms of smart TV shipments, Xiaomi ranked 1st in India for five consecutive quarters as of the second quarter this year.

On camera war, he said that Xiaomi launched its first 48-megapixel camera phone in Redmi Note 7 Pro six month ago and "with Mi A3, we have taken 48-megapixel camera to a brand new level".

Mi A3 houses a triple-camera setup at the back which includes Sony's 48-megapixel IMX586 primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.

"Camera is an important point where consumer need to upgrade. If a manufacturer offers a better camera phone, it catches the customers' imagination. Camera is an important direction in which most of the smartphone manufacturers are moving," the Xiaomi executive elaborated.