BEIJING, February 2 (TMTPOST)— Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has been proven to extend its reign of India’s smartphone market, which just showed a much more robust growth last year compared with the global market despite the ongoing chip shortage.

Source: Visual China

The annual shipments of smartphone in India grew 11% year-over-year (YoY) to the highest ever 169 million in 2021, and Xiaomi maintained the top place with a shipment share of 24%, trailing Samsung’s 18% share, according to the technology market research firm Counterpoint Research.

In 2021, Xiaomi’s shipment had 2% growth while Samsung’s declined 8% from a year earlier. Component shortage in the second half of year resulted in Xiaomi’s slowdown, but Counterpoint noted its shipment in the premium segment (smartphones priced at more than INR30,000, or about US$400), mainly from the Mi 11x series, reached its record high share with 258% YoY increase. The firm expected Xiaomi to continue its focus on the premium segment and offline expansion.

Samsung’s YoY decline in 2021 resulted from supply chain disruptions, absence of new Note series and its less focus on the entry-level segment and fewer launches in the mid segment than the previous year. However, Samsung gained the top position in 5Gsmartphone shipments in the fourth quarter, facilitated by its campaign on maximum bands.

Vivo, Xiaomi’s domestic peer was ranked the third next to Samsung with a 15% share, while it emerged as the top 5G smartphone brand in 2021 with a 19% share, driven by a strong performance of its Y series and V.

Among the top five brands, realme, a former sub-brand to another Chinese smarphone company OPPO, was the fastest growing in 2021 with 20% YoY growth. It also overtook Samsung in the fourth quarter of the year, for the first time capturing the second spot.

2021 witnessed India’s impressive growth compared to the smartphone market in the whold world. “The Indian smartphone market witnessed high consumer demand in 2021, making it the best-performing year,” Counterpoint senior research analyst Prachir Singh said. The analyst also pointed out the country had high replacement demand, fuelled by increasing smartphone affordability in the mid and high-price tiers due to promotions and discounts, as well as better financing options.

The global smartphone shipment increased 4% YoY to 1.39 billion units last year after three consecutive years of decline since 2018, another Counterpoint’s report showed. According to the firm’s separate report last week, China’s smartphone market decreased 2% YoY for various reasons such as the component shortage, a longer smartphone replacement cycle under a complex macroeconomic environment, where the economy became more dependent on exports to drive the growth as the domestic spending remained lackluster.