In addition to being home to one of the world's largest smartphone markets, India has a most fascinating mobile industry, which often swims against the global tides with unpredictable fluctuations and changes in its vendor hierarchy.
While Samsung and Apple remain essentially deadlocked in their battle for worldwide domination, a completely different brand continues to top the Indian charts... and a few others are actually reigning supreme in terms of regional growth. Perhaps most curiously, the market that used to expand when shipments were going down in so many other places is now shrinking at the same time that global numbers are (modestly) going up.
Vivo gets the gold, substantially widening the gap to Samsung
After narrowly beating the first runner-up in Q1 2024, Vivo managed to handily win the war for India's smartphone vendor title between January and March of this year. We're talking an over 3 percent lead in market share in the International Data Corporation's (IDC's) latest local quarterly report, up from an advantage of only 0.6 percent this time last year.
Vivo's slice of the pie jumped from 16.2 to 19.7 percent thanks to a 14.6 percent boost in sales that would be mighty impressive... were it not for Apple, Motorola, Nothing, and Google's higher year-on-year surges.
Five top brands are up and five are down.
That's right, Apple's iPhone shipments are up by 23.1 percent, while Motorola can tout an even beefier 54.7 percent progress, and somehow, Nothing and Google are still the market's top performers compared to their first-quarter figures from 2024.
In a way, of course, it was much easier for Nothing and Google to register the region's highest overall growth, surging from considerably lower results than Vivo or Apple and thus being unable to make the top ten vendor list. Apple, meanwhile, incredibly posted a new all-time Q1 record of three million units in India, clearly benefitting from all its efforts to diversify its product portfolio and expand its manufacturing facilities over the last few years.
All hail the iPhone 16 family!
Surprisingly or not, there's no specific mention of the budget-friendly iPhone 16e model in today's Indian smartphone market report, but only the iPhone 16, which I presume refers to the entire lineup consisting of "vanilla", Plus, Pro, Pro Max, and e variants.
Either way, Apple is clearly primarily responsible for the growth of India's "premium" segment, which includes handsets priced at the equivalent of $600 and up. This is where the Galaxy S25 trio was also supposed to shine, but that doesn't appear to be the case, contributing (at least in part) to Samsung's 0.6 percent decline in overall smartphone shipments and a microscopic progress from 15.6 to 16.4 percent market share.
That's a lot of up and down movement in the top ten for just 12 months.
On the bright side for the world's number one smartphone vendor, the Galaxy A56 apparently performed well in India during the first three months of 2025 in a "mid-premium segment" where the ancient iPhone 13 also continues to sell like hotcakes.
Oppo, Realme, and Apple are currently ranked behind Vivo and Samsung in India's top five, while Xiaomi is barely able to hold off Motorola in sixth place after sitting on the podium back in Q1 2024. Alongside Xiaomi, brands like Poco, OnePlus, and iQOO also saw their Indian sales numbers shrink between the January-March timeframe of last year and the same period of this year, being (at least partly) responsible for the nation's 6 percent dip to a grand total of 32 million unit shipments in Q1 2025.
Interestingly, IDC analysts still expect the market to end the year on a high note compared to 2024, but only by "low single-digits." That definitely sounds underwhelming, although it's obviously better than a decline.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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