Duty hikes, weak rupee to push up prices of smartphones soon

“With the duty hikes in place and the dollar fluctuation, smartphone vendors are expected to raise prices of devices in the coming months rather than absorbing the cost or clocking it under cash backs and financing schemes,” said Navkendar Singh, Associate Research Director, Client Devices and IPDS, IDC India.

In the wake of the depreciating rupee and rising input costs, Realme and Xiaomi have already increased prices of some of their handsets. Xiaomi increased the prices of its budget smartphones Redmi 6 and Redmi 6A, along with Mi Powerbank 2i and Mi TV (32-inch Pro and 49-inch Pro variants).

Online-focused Chinese smartphone maker Realme increased the prices of its two popular budget handsets in India. Meanwhile, the IDC ‘Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker’ said on Thursday Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi shipped 11.7 million units and became the top brand in the Indian market with 27.3 per cent share in the third quarter this year, with Samsung at second spot. The smartphone market in India reached an all-time high of 42.6 million unit shipments in the third quarter (ending September 30), registering a 9.1 per cent year-on-year (YOY) growth.

This is the first time when the smartphone market is at par with the feature phone market, each contributing 50 per cent to the overall mobile phone market, the IDC said in a statement.

According to Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Channel Research, IDC India, shipments in the third quarter were primarily driven by the eTailer channel in the run-up to the festival season. “eTailers continued to drive affordability with multiple financing options such as zero or low-cost EMIs (equated monthly instalments), buyback guarantees and cashback on debit/credit cards,” Joshi said in a statement.