Samsung Yields To Vivo As India's Second-Biggest Smartphone Maker

Many perhaps consider Samsung to be the biggest smartphone company in the world and that may be true, at least on a global scale. When it comes to specific markets, however, Samsung is slowly losing ground. It's really no surprise that it wouldn't be at the top in China but everywhere else is fair game. In India, however, Samsung has not only slipped from being #1 but is no longer #2 even, now that it has lost that spot to yet another Chinese vendor, Vivo.The numbers that market analysis company Canalys released is quite telling on a number of fronts. Samsung has always been under the threat of losing market share from Chinese companies but it has mostly been Huawei that is nibbling at it, especially after the latter overtook Apple as the world's Number Two. Even Huawei, however, has had difficulty getting a foothold in the country considered to be the second-biggest mobile market after China.

What's more surprising, however, is Vivo's rapid growth in India. In other markets, it is mostly tied with OPPO or even falling behind slightly. OPPO may also be in trouble in that particular market as even its former subsidiary Realm has overtaken it in the first quarter of 2020.

Samsung's loss in India comes at a terrible time for the company when its early 2020 flagship, the Galaxy S20, is reportedly underselling due to several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic. It is waging a price war in India against ultimately more affordable handsets like Xiaomi's and not even its latest generation of Galaxy A and Galaxy M phones have been able to turn the tides in its favor.

Samsung isn't the only one having trouble in India. Aside from Huawei, Apple is also unable to corner the smartphone market exactly because of its pricing. Given how these smartphone makers are producing increasingly more expensive phones every year, that gap may get even wider, with or without the novel coronavirus.