Xiaomi’s India shipments plunged 38% YoY in Q1 2025, the steepest drop among top brands.
Despite launching the Redmi Note 14 and Xiaomi 15, high inventory and weak demand hurt sales.
Vivo led the market with 7 million units, while Xiaomi slipped to seventh amid fierce competition and brand confusion.
The Indian smartphone market continues to face a rough patch as the overall shipments fell 8 per cent year on year to 32.4 million units in the first quarter of 2025. The brand that is facing the heat most is Xiaomi — once the market leader in India. While the overall market is down, Xiaomi (including Poco) has seen the sharpest decline in shipments. The Chinese smartphone maker’s shipments have fallen by a massive 38 per cent year on year in Q1 2025, the steepest drop among competitors.
The brand shipped 4 million units in the first quarter, compared to 6.4 million in Q1 2024, reducing its market share from 18 per cent to 12 per cent. This is despite the fact that Xiaomi launched two of its most important line-ups in the first quarter of the year: the Redmi Note 14 series and the flagship Xiaomi 15 lineup.
According to the report, the Note 14 series’ early launch failed to gain traction, primarily because of high inventory levels and conservative channel sentiment. The Redmi 14C 5G did, however, provide some traction in the budget segment but was unable to counteract the overall slowdown, the report added.
“2025 is shaping up to be another channel-driven year,” said Sanyam Chaurasia, Senior Analyst at Canalys. “With organic demand still weak, Xiaomi’s traditional strength in the offline and budget sectors was challenged by tighter sell-out strategies and more aggressive moves from rivals,” Chaurasia added.
While Xiaomi stumbled, competitors such as Vivo were able to gain traction. The brand topped the list, shipping 7 million units and commanding a 22 per cent market share. According to the report, the company executed well across price tiers and campaigns based on its ZEISS-backed V50 series, resulting in a 13 per cent year-on-year growth.
Samsung managed to secure second place with 5.1 million shipped units, despite experiencing a 23 per cent YoY decline in total shipments. Realme and Oppo (not including OnePlus), both experienced positive yearly growth of 3 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively.
Earlier, the IDC data revealed that Xiaomi has fallen to seventh place in the Indian smartphone market largely due to poor offline retail performance, high inventory levels from previous months, and limited new product launches.
The IDC analysts stated that Xiaomi’s unclear brand positioning, which involves striking a balance between the budget and premium segments, has harmed the brand image. Its sub-brand Poco has also received criticism from online retailers.
On the other hand, leadership changes and ongoing scrutiny of alleged foreign exchange violations have worsened the situation for Xiaomi.
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Ashish Singh
Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek. View Full Profile
