3% growth in Indian smartphone market
With the beginning of the festive season, the Indian smartphone market has seen a boom. There has been a slight increase of 3% year-on-year in smartphone shipments (phones sent from companies to distributors) in the third quarter (July-September) of calendar year 2025. During this period, a total of 4.84 crore units were launched in the market. These figures have been released by research firm ‘Omdia’.
At first glance this news seems good, but analysts are not very excited about it. He says that this growth has come not from the pockets of actual customers, but from the aggressive ‘channel pushing’ strategy of the companies. To put it in simple language, companies have filled the stores with huge discounts and rewards, but are customers buying at the same pace? This is a big question, because according to the report, the real ‘organic demand’ i.e. natural demand from customers is still limited.
Vivo’s dominance continues, Apple makes a strong comeback
Talking about market share, Vivo (except iQOO) has further strengthened its lead. The company shipped 97 lakh units, which is 20% of the total market. After this, Samsung stood at second place with 68 lakh units (14% share). There was a tough competition between Xiaomi and Oppo (except OnePlus) for the third position. Both shipped 65-65 lakh units, in which Xiaomi managed to overtake by a slight margin.
But the biggest story of this quarter has been written by Apple. Apple has made a strong comeback in the top-5 by shipping 49 lakh units. This is Apple’s highest ever shipment in any quarter in India, giving it 10% market share. According to Omdia’s principal analyst Sanyam Chaurasia, this growth of Apple is unprecedented and it is coming mainly from small cities.
‘iPhone’ craze in small towns
Analyst Chaurasia says that a different kind of aspirational demand for ‘iPhone’ was seen in small cities. This demand was further fueled by festive offers and easy availability. Interestingly, most of the sales were of older models, like the iPhone 16s and 15s, which were sold at huge discounts. At the same time, the base model of iPhone 17 also performed well, especially those customers who bought it were upgrading from iPhone 12 to 15 series. In the future, Apple’s emphasis will be on upgrading Pro models and strengthening its ecosystem.
This rise was not limited to Apple alone. Omdia’s report shows that almost all companies spent their marketing budget on wooing retailers. Dealers were given ‘sell-through’ cash bonuses, tier-based margins and even big rewards like gold coins, bikes and trips abroad. These schemes motivated distributors and shopkeepers to pick up more inventory ahead of the festive season.
At the same time, schemes like zero-down-payment EMI, micro-installment plan, free accessories and warranty extension were run to attract customers. All this together helped the new models launched in July and August to spread rapidly in the market.
Stock ‘accumulated’ in shops, but customers ‘lethargic’
Despite all the offers and hype, experts are warning that this boom may not last long. Sanyam Chaurasia believes that there may be concerns about inventory (unsold goods) in the October to December quarter. He clearly said, “It will be difficult to maintain the momentum of the third quarter till the end of the year.”
The biggest concern is that there is a huge gap between ‘shipment’ (from companies to shop) and ‘sell-out’ (from shop to customer). This means that the goods have reached the shops, but the customers are not buying them that fast. According to Chaurasia, “Urban consumers are delaying upgrading their phones despite the availability of better products and finance schemes due to job uncertainties and rising inflation.”
On the other hand, rural demand is relatively stable, but not enough to compensate for the sluggishness of the urban market. The report concludes that the risk of inventory accumulation in Q4 has increased after November, especially after the end of the festive season. Looking at the whole of 2025, Omdia estimates that the market will see only a slight decline, which is indicative of a delicate recovery, which will be highly dependent on economic conditions and channel correction.