India’s smartphone sales fall 13% during second COVID-19 wave

Online smartphones purchases, however, helped sales surge 87% compared with a year earlier, according to market research firm Canalys.

July 22, 2021 06:09 pm | Updated 06:19 pm IST

Image used for representation purpose.

Image used for representation purpose.

India’s smartphone sales fell 13% in the second quarter compared with the previous one as a second wave of COVID-19 infections hurt demand in the world's No. 2 smartphone market, a research report said on Thursday.

(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)

Online smartphones purchases, however, helped sales surge 87% compared with a year earlier, according to market research firm Canalys.

Also Read | Jio’s new budget phone won’t be a game-changer in the short-term, report says

"Smartphone vendors in India had assumed COVID-19 would not return, and several planned to invest in infrastructure for branded stores and partnerships with third-party offline channels. But once again they were quickly compelled to pivot to an online strategy," Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia wrote in the report.

China's Xiaomi Corp continued to be the top brand favoured by Indian buyers with a 29% market share, followed by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd at 17% share, Canalys said.

Chaurasia predicted the country will see a rebound in the second half of this year as vaccinations boost consumer confidence and as smartphone brands launch new products.

Also Read | Smartphone shipments set to grow in 2021 despite supply pressure

As the threat of a third wave of COVID-19 infections still looms in India, customer behaviour and industrial operations will continue to adjust to pandemic conditions, helping reduce the impact, the analyst wrote.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.