5G phone shipments in India surged by 74% in 2022

Shipments of 5G smartphones spurted by 74 per cent in 2022 even as overall mobile phone shipments declined by 8 per cent in the year, CyberMedia Research said on Tuesday.

According to the CyberMedia Research (CMR) report, Xiaomi led the overall smartphone market with a 21 per cent market share while Samsung led in the shipment of 5G smartphones with a 23 per cent market share.

Driven by a resilient consumer appetite to switch and upgrade, the premium smartphone market continued to gain traction, the report said.

In fact, the uber-premium smartphone segment (over Rs 1 lakh) grew a whopping over 95 per cent year-over-year.

The overall smartphone market continued to post a decline, driven by the tough market conditions in the second half of 2022, CMR, Analyst- Industry Intelligence Group, Menka Kumari said.

CMR estimates that around $20 billion (about Rs 1.65 lakh crore) worth of 5G Smartphones were shipped in 2022.

"The India smartphone shipments declined 8 per cent YoY.

"On a quarter-over-quarter basis, smartphone shipments declined by 28 per cent in the fourth quarter 2022," the report said.

The overall mobile market in India declined 17 per cent YoY in 2022.

The shipments in the affordable segment, sub-Rs 7,000 apiece, declined by 55 per cent on YoY basis due to supply constraints as well as challenging economic conditions.

There was an 8 per cent YoY shipment decline in the Rs 7000-25,000 price segment.

However, the Premium smartphone segment priced in the range of Rs 25,000- 50,000 apiece and the super-premium smartphone segment priced in the range of 50,000-Rs 1,00,000 saw shipments increase by 12 per cent and 41 per cent YoY respectively.

"Xiaomi(21 per cent), Samsung (19 per cent) and Vivo (14 per cent) captured the top three spots in the Smartphone leaderboard in 2022 followed by Realme (14 per cent) and Oppo (10 per cent)," the report said.

Xiaomi's Redmi 9A Sport, Redmi 10(2022)and Redmi 10A were the top three models of the company while its sub-brand Poco witnessed a 37 per cent YoY decline in its shipments in 2022.

"Samsung was the leader in the premium (Rs 25,000-50,000) smartphone segment with 31 per cent share. Samsung's 5G Smartphone shipments crossed the 1 crore mark and recorded a remarkable 142 per cent YoY growth," the report said.

According to CMR estimates, the overall feature phone segment declined by 34 per cent YoY, driven by weak consumer sentiment, owing to high device prices.