What you need to know
- A Canalys report shows the performance of Android in India's premium market, which also highlights changes for two notable OEMs.
- For OnePlus, the Chinese company saw a drastic drop in sales performance while Google started to climb.
- OnePlus was dropped from 4,500 retailers in a couple of Indian regions in 2024 due to problems with warranties and "profits."
A report concerning the premium smartphone market's recent performance has arrived and it paints a sour trend for one maker.
The report details the sales of phones from Q1 2024 to Q3 in the major market of India, per Canalys (via 9to5Google). The post states that several new "Android offerings" have boosted the "premium share" within the Indian consumer market. Data shows that a few OEMs have grown between Q1 and Q3 2024, such as OPPO, Vivo, and even Samsung (by a slim margin).
However, the biggest change is the plummeting sales of the Chinese OEM, OnePlus. Compared to 2023, Canalys' data shows that OnePlus went from holding 21% of the sales pie to a measly 6% in 2024. Analytics show that the company did see positive "traction" in the foldable market, but that doesn't seem to have affected its premium share that much.
On the other hand, sales performances show that Google is on the rise in India. Google grew by 4% in India between (roughly) January to September 2024.
The post adds that Android phones made up 44% of the premium market share in India last year, shipping 6.5 million units. While Samsung accounted for 67% of that, the post claims that its growth was "modest," likely thanks to the S24 series.
The sudden drop in sales for OnePlus — particularly for India — was a hot topic in April 2024. It was reported that around 4,500 retailers were discontinuing their sales of OnePlus phones across six states in the southern and western areas of India. There were a couple of major catalysts behind this decision: delays in warranty processing and "slender profit margins."
That sales ban went live on May 1 in India and we're now seeing the extremely adverse result of this for the Chinese OEM.
At the time, OnePlus stated that it "values all the support" that it's received from its partners in India. The company also told Android Central that it was working with retailers in the country to correct the issues. We'll see what happens as we begin to move into 2025.
Then we have Google, which reportedly had high, record sales in Q3 2024. The company can likely thank its Pixel 9 series for its "highest-ever" market share growth last third quarter. It was initially stated that Pixel sales in Japan, Western Europe, and LATAM were among the standouts for driving its major sales boost. With what we're seeing from India's Canalys data, perhaps another country can make that list.
