India’s Festive Season Smartphone Sales Grow 25% YoY in Value in First Week

India’s festive season smartphone sales this year, which started on October 8, witnessed growth both in terms of value and volume during the first week (October 8-15) driven by strong demand for Samsung Electronics, Apple and Xiaomi Technology devices. Online channels, which experienced slow demand throughout the year, registered a bigger-than-expected surge in demand, prompting them to raise prices from the third day of the sales week.

Both Flipkart and Amazon rolled out their respective sales – ‘The Big Billion Day’ and ‘The Great India Festival’ – with lucrative offers that included heavy price discounts, higher trade-in values and attractive bundling offers. Apart from offers on the existing portfolio, both platforms also launched some ultra-premium smartphones, including the Google Pixel 8 series, Samsung Galaxy S23 FE and Find N3 Flip.

The premium segment witnessed significant growth in both platforms. On Flipkart, the premium segment growth was almost 50% YoY driven by the iPhone 14 and Galaxy S21 FE, while on Amazon the segment growth was almost 200% YoY driven by the iPhone 13 and Galaxy S23 FE. Like in 2022, Apple enjoyed high demand with its sales crossing 1.5 million units and registering more than 25% YoY growth. This year, the iPhone 14, iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 all experienced high demand, unlike a year ago when the iPhone 13 was the major driver. The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE also   witnessed strong sales. The model was sold out after two days of the sale on Flipkart.

5G smartphones also experienced phenomenal growth with almost 80% of phones sold on both channels being 5G enabled. The INR 10,000-INR 15,000 price segment witnessed faster 5G upgrades as OEMs launched many devices ahead of the festive season. The realme Narzo 60x 5G, Galaxy M14 5G and M34 5G were the top sellers on Amazon,  while the vivo T2x was the top seller on Flipkart.

We are witnessing strong demand for premium devices even after the first week of sales, driven by the availability of many financing and credit schemes, including per-day EMIs. The strong demand has set a cheerful mood for the festive  season and we believe the strong consumer sentiment will continue in offline sales as well due to parity between offline  and online discounts. Overall, we believe the festive season smartphone sales this year will grow 7% YoY in terms of volumes while the average selling price (ASP) will grow 15% YoY.