China Dominates Indian Mobile Phone Market

India has begun a crackdown on Chinese smartphone makers as the country's financial investigations agency is taking aim at popular brands Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo. So far, Indian authorities have found irregularities concerning foreign exchange and tax payments, according to CNN. Data from Counterpoint Research shows that Chinese manufacturers are dominating the Indian mobile phone market, especially the smartphone segment.

When taking into account all phones, including feature phones, the market is a little more fragmented but the main players remain Chinese with the exception of Samsung. After the Indian phone market saw some major reshuffling in 2018, Samsung made it back on top of the feature phone category in 2019 after Indian producer Jio had seen a short-lived boost thanks to a popular 4G-ready feature phone release. Jio had boosted its market share of feature phone shipments to 38 percent in 2018, but that share was back down to 17 percent in 2019.

As Indians are switching to smartphones, the local feature phone market is declining by 39 percent year-over-year, consolidating Chinese dominance over the mobile phone market.