India overtakes US to be second biggest smartphone market

It’s taken a little bit of time, but the latest smartphone stats from Canalys show that India has overtaken the United States for smartphone shipments.

According to the tracking firm, India is now in second place, hitting the 40 million mark for the first time as well.

“There are close to 100 mobile device brands sold in India, with more vendors arriving every quarter. In addition, India has one of the most complex channel landscapes, but with low barriers to entry. Growth will continue. Low smartphone penetration and the explosion of LTE are the main drivers,” said Canalys analyst (heh) Ishan Dutt.

As for the top players in the market? Samsung is at number one, closely followed by Xiaomi. In fact, Samsung saw a 30% year on year increase to 9.4 million units, but Xiaomi saw a huge 290% increase to 9.2 million units.

Rounding out the top five was Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo. The BBK-owned firms (Vivo and Oppo) also saw similarly impressive growth.

Canalys noted that Xiaomi’s strength was at the low-end, while Samsung, Vivo and Oppo dominated the mid-tier. Still, the firm predicts that Xiaomi will overtake Samsung “within a couple of quarters”.

What about Apple though? The company doubled its shipments to 900 000 units, but isn’t in the top five.