While Indian smartphone shipments fell for the first time ever, Chinese handset makers saw record growth

As per a Canalys Report, though Indian smartphone industry has seen a massive rise of Chinese smartphones, post the historic tax reform, namely Goods and Service Tax (GST) on 1 July; there has been a four percent contraction in sales of smartphones this year. [caption id=“attachment_262455” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Post the GST, Canalys reported a y-o-y sale ( 2016 and 2017) of smartphones in the second quarter where Xiaomi sprang to 4.8 million units, which is four times the sale of last year. Meanwhile Vivo jumped saw a threefold increase in sales. However, Oppo gave Vivo a tough fight, ranking third in India in terms of the number of phones sold. Samsung, on the contrary, did see a rise in sales, but the figure is very small and has remained virtually unperturbed in both the years. Amongst the Chinese brethren, only Lenovo saw a very minuscule rise in sales. According to Canalys analysts, it is the tier II and tier III cities that are the main market for these Chinese phones. “There is general confusion in the entire market over **GST** and a lack of awareness about the changes that are needed. Apprehension among distributors and retailers regarding the impact on prices has caused the market to adopt a wait and see policy,” said Canalys analyst, Rushabn Doshi. [caption id=“attachment_3862923” align=“aligncenter” width=“825”]  A decrease in smartphone sale post GST. Canalys.[/caption] Chinese phone makers, which control over 50 percent of the smartphone market, have established a sales curve this year that seems to be giving competition to South Korea’s Samsung. According to a report about 27 million units were shipped in India in the second quarter of this year, which is four percent lower than during the same period last year.