Samsung claws back ground from Xiaomi as the battle for India continues

The Indian smartphone market’s been by far the most entertaining mobile battleground to keep track of lately. Lo and behold, there’s been another twist. And this one seems to have played out in Samsung’s favor, for once. According to the latest industry data, Samsung managed to recover some of the ground it lost to Xiaomi in recent years.

In the second half of 2020, the company accounted for nearly one-fourth of the Indian smartphone market – 22%. That’s a three-point improvement compared to the same period last year, reports Counterpoint Research.

Can Samsung pull through and regain the Indian mobile crown this year?

Meanwhile, the past twelve months have seen Xiaomi lose some momentum in the online segment, its bread and butter. More specifically, Samsung’s largest rival in India went from dominating domestic ecommerce space by seizing 43% of all smartphone purchases made in the country across the first half of 2019 to 36% a year later.

Which still isn’t a bad haul, mind you. Particularly seeing how Xiaomi’s overall performance was still enough enough to beat Samsung by two percentage points of the overall market share in the country. That’s 24% of all Indian handset sales as opposed to 22% Samsung managed in the final six months of 2020.

Overall, things are looking alright from Samsung’s perspective at the moment. Let’s not forget Xiaomi looked unbeatable only a year prior in terms of pure volume. Largely on account of the fact that its supply chain is that much more cost-effective than Samsung’s. But can Xiaomi afford to keep this race up for much longer? We shall see, but one thing is certain – begun, the clone wars have.