Xiaomi’s India journey hits a speed bump

Why read this story?

Editor's note: The Indian smartphone market is in the middle of its biggest upheaval since Indian smartphone makers like Micromax disrupted the well-entrenched global smartphone brands about a decade ago and then Chinese smartphone makers bulldozed them out of the market a few years down the line. A relatively new player—Xiaomi—quickly climbed up the leaderboard to become the top smartphone brand in the country, displacing a behemoth like Samsung, which survived both the earlier mentioned disruptions. Xiaomi has now seen a back-to-back dip in its quarterly market share for the first time in over five years, per the latest data by market research firm Canalys. Once the top smartphone brand in the country, it has now slumped down to fourth position behind Vivo, OPPO and Samsung. Of course, Xiaomi is not the only one hit by the sluggish consumer demand and uncertain macroeconomic factors of the last few quarters. According to the IDC, only 31 million smartphones were shipped in India in the first quarter of this year—the lowest first-quarter shipments in four years and a decline of 16% year on year.  …