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Samsung losing more ground in India while vivo gobbles it up

July 13, 2025

Samsung lost its top spotin India to Xiaomi a little over a year ago now (whetherSamsung wants to admit it or not). Although there doesn’t appear to be any chance in the near future of the company losing its second-place slot, the latest smartphone shipment estimates paint a bleak picture for the South Korean electronics giant.

According toCanalys,Samsungshipped 7.3 million smartphones in India during the first quarter of 2019. That’s a small (but significant) drop of 200,000 units as compared to the first quarter of 2018.

Official render of the Samsung Galaxy View 2 from AT&T

Of the top four Indian smartphone vendors —Xiaomi, Samsung,Vivo, andOppo, in that order — Samsung is the only brand to ship fewer smartphones in the country year-over-year.

Samsung’s troubles in India reflectthe company’s woes throughout the rest of the world, so these results aren’t too surprising. However, India is a very important market for all smartphone vendors as its one of the few markets that’s still growing, making it an opportunity for revenue. Samsung’s share shrinking is definitely bad news.

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It wasn’t all dour news in India, though. Number one vendor Xiaomi grew its market share by four percent and shipped 400,000 more smartphones than it did the previous year. The overall India market also grew by just under two percent — not an excessive amount of growth, but growth nonetheless.

The real star of India right now, though, is vivo. According to Canalys, vivo shipped 2.4 million more smartphones in India as compared to Q1 2018, a growth of over 100 percent. This increased its market share from 7.3 percent to 15 percent, handily securing its third-place slot on the leaderboard.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra on anker charger

Also, the young companyRealme— itself an offshoot of OPPO — made significant gains shipping 1.3 million units. We can’t compare that number to Q1 2018 because the company wasn’t active then, which is pretty impressive growth.

You can read the full report from Canalyshere.

NEXT:Report: Chinese smartphones are dominating in India, but so are Indian feature phones

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