Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Realme has become the second-largest smartphone maker in India, even as the country’s smartphone market continues to slump. The Indian market also continued to decline in the June quarter, according to data from market research firm IDC’s latest quarterly device tracking report. According to the company, the Indian smartphone market saw a 5 percent year-over-year decline, despite device shipments growing 2.9 percent year-over-year to 34.7 million units in the quarter, compared with 33.8 million units in Q2 2021.
Meanwhile, Chinese smartphone OEMs Realme and Vivo were the biggest winners — despite market headwinds. Realme shipped 6.1 million smartphones in India in the second quarter of 2022, up 23.7 percent, while Vivo shipped 5.9 million units in the same quarter, up 17.4 percent year-on-year. This helped Realme leapfrog to the top of the market. This helped Realme jump to the second largest smartphone brand in India, behind only Xiaomi. Xiaomi is now the largest smartphone brand in India and has managed to retain its number one market ranking, but with much lower margins than before.
According to IDC data, Xiaomi shipments fell 28.2 percent to 7.1 million units in the second quarter of 2022. Two years ago, in the second quarter of 2020, Xiaomi shipped three times the number of devices that Realme India shipped. The difference between Xiaomi and Realme was nearly 20 percentage points then, but now the difference is less than 3 percentage points. This further underscores Realme’s strong growth in India, and Xiaomi’s shipments are actually up from two years ago.
