Today, Samsung India sent out a brief press release quoting the research and analyst firm, GfK, and claiming to be the top smartphone OEM “by a distance”. This was a clear dig at Xiaomi who has been aggressive with their marketing as being the No. 1 smartphone player in the country for the past couple of months.
As you would expect, Xiaomi sent out its own press release within minutes of Samsung sending out their’s, refuting the claims made by Samsung and reiterating their position as India’s top smartphone OEM. Without mincing words, Xiaomi India took a dig at Samsung and GfK report: Taking that statement on face value, it seems Samsung is selectively using the data to claim the top position in the Indian smartphone market which they seem to have lost to Xiaomi. The Chinese OEM is clearly the top company when it comes to online sales, but is slowly but surely expanding its offline presence much to the dismay of traditionally strong offline players like Samsung, Oppo and Vivo. There have been reports of Samsung going bullish on the online market where people prefer smartphones with better value for money. And Xiaomi hiring people from Samsung and other companies to capture a bigger pie in the offline space. 2018 will surely be exciting for the customers.
