India’s smartphone shipments jumped 7% in 2021 despite the pandemic

Realme registered the highest growth amongst the top five smartphone vendors.

What you need to know

• IDC's latest worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker has revealed that India shipped 161 million smartphones last year.
• Shipments were up 7% compared to the previous year, despite pandemic-related challenges.
• Xiaomi remained the No.1 smartphone vendor in the country, with a market share of 25.1%.

Smartphone shipments in India jumped 7% in 2021 to reach 161 million units, according to the IDC's latest worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker. The growth is quite impressive as the pandemic continued to create disruptions throughout the year.

IDC expects the Indian smartphone market to remain flat YoY in the first quarter of 2022 due to low seasonal demand and the ongoing third wave of COVID-19. The research firm also noted that the share of the premium segment in the country doubled to 4% in 2021, growing by over 100% YoY. However, this growth was mainly driven by higher Apple shipments and not Android OEMs.

Navkendar Singh, research director, client devices & IPDS at IDC India, said in a statement:

Overall, supply challenges and the second wave of Covid-19 severely restricted the market's ability to achieve double-digit growth in 2021. Consumer demand is lower than expected as we entered 2022, but supply challenges are expected to ease by mid-2022, which should help in maintaining similar growth levels in 2022.

Xiaomi was successful in holding on to the No.1 position last year, thanks to a lineup of great Android phones. It shipped 40.4 million phones and captured a 25.1% share of the market. Samsung's market share, on the other hand, stood at 17.4%. In the fourth quarter of the year, however, it was Realme that grabbed the second slot.

The company shipped 0.6 million more phones than Samsung and held 18.8% of the market. It was also the only major smartphone brand to register YoY growth in shipments in Q4 2021.

The report also reveals that MediaTek extended its lead over Qualcomm in the Indian smartphone market last year. Its market share in the country increased to 54%.