Bloomberg NewsAccording to information obtained, the Indian government plans to restrict Chinese brands from selling mobile phone products priced below 1.2 rupees (about US$150, NT$4500) in India to protect the development opportunities of Indian businesses.
In the current development of the Indian mobile phone market, the top five mobile phone brands are all foreign players, and four of them are from China. They are Xiaomi and Samsung, each with a market share of 5%, followed by vivo with a market share of 4%, realme with a market share of 19%, and OPPO with a market share of 17%. Together, they account for 16% of the Indian mobile phone market.
Before these brands entered the Indian market, two local Indian mobile phone brands, Lava and Micromax, held about half of the market share, while the market share of mobile phone products from Samsung and other companies was not high at that time.
India has become the world's second-largest mobile phone market, with a user population exceeding 4.9 million, second only to China's approximately 9.5 million. The Indian mobile phone market is expected to grow rapidly in recent years, primarily due to the continuous entry of Chinese brands. Following Huawei's failure in mobile phone markets outside of China, brands such as Vivo, OPPO, Realme, and Xiaomi have increased their presence in the Indian market, attracting a wide range of user groups with lower-priced entry-level and mid-range phones, while also capturing market share with more cost-effective high-end models.
Although the high-end mobile phone market is still dominated by Samsung and Apple, the larger entry-level and mid-range mobile phone markets are almost all won by Chinese brands.
At this stage, it is still unclear whether the Indian government will explicitly restrict Chinese brands from selling mobile phones priced below 1.2 rupees, or privately ask Chinese brands to cooperate.The previous practice of deliberately making things difficult for Xiaomi and vivo, which seems to contain a lot of "warning" implications. Obviously, Chinese brands may face many restrictions in their future development in the Indian market.
