Samsung India is losing ground to phone brands so small they barely register

Samsung has lost some ground in India in Q2 2021, but the company retained second place on the podium. It was led by Xiaomi and followed by Vivo, Realme, Oppo, and other minor brands. Speaking of which, it looks like Samsung didn’t lose ground to Xiaomi or one of the bigger brands, but to smaller ones that barely even register in Counterpoint Research’s graphs, as seen below.

Xiaomi was the leading OEM in India in Q2, but its smartphone market share was roughly the same as a year ago. It captured 28.4% of the market, down 0.1% year-on-year, while Samsung had a market share of 17.7%, down from 25.7% in Q1 2020.

Meanwhile, Vivo lost a 2% market share while Realme and Oppo won a few percentage points. In essence, this means that the 8% Samsung had lost were picked up mostly by other, very small brands. Smaller than Realme and Oppo, at least.

As for the phone market as a whole — including smartphones as well as feature phones — Xiaomi is leading with a 20.5% share, and Samsung is following with a 16.6% share.

Samsung’s performance was helped by the Galaxy M and F series

Counterpoint Research claims that the share of 5G smartphones is on the rise in India. However, this doesn’t seem to have helped Samsung much. The top 5G smartphone brands in India are Realme and OnePlus.

What drove Samsung’s sales figures were the new models from the Galaxy M and Galaxy F series of smartphones.

Since the start of 2021, Samsung introduced four Galaxy F-branded phones to India, starting with the Galaxy F62 in February and continuing with the Galaxy F02s, the Galaxy F12, and the Galaxy F22.