Samsung smartphone user base still far higher than Xiaomi: CMR

NEW DELHI: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi lags Samsung by a long way in terms on installed base, despite having overtaken the Korean major in terms of quarterly shipments, according to data from Cyber Research, an independent mobile-market analysis firm.

The data received till the end of March by CMR showed that Samsung still dominated the Indian market with 30.8% installed base, whereas Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo despite recording high shipment share over the last two quarter had some catching up to do with Korean smartphone manufacturing giant with 8.53%, 5.63% and 5.02% installed base respectively.

Micromax remained the only Indian brand among the top five in terms of installed base with 8.63% of the market share among smartphones, according to CMR.


In a separate study by the CMR's big data analytics programme, Mobilystiks, only seven states in India have a smartphone market share of more than 50%. The study took into account all the mobile phones - smartphones and feature phones - registered in the country till the end of March.

With 415 million installations, smartphones made up 45.7% of the mobile market showing that feature phones still outnumber the former, at least in terms of density.

Kerala ranks the highest among all the states in terms of smartphone penetration with 64.7% whereas Assam ranked the lowest with just 26.8%. The other states with more than half the share of smartphone penetration include Delhi (54.3%), Gujarat (58.3%), Himachal Pradesh (53.6%), Maharashtra (55.4%), Punjab (57.4%) and Tamil Nadu (53.8%).

According to the study, states such Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal had less than one out of three mobile phone users having smartphones.