Chinese brands took their largest ever slice of the $10-billion Indian smartphone market in late 2016, accounting for more than one in every two phones sold - a growing market share that ate into sales from top-selling Samsung Electronics. Samsung, the single most popular smartphone brand in India, commanded a roughly 30% market share just over a year ago. That slipped to 21% in November, according to tech research firm Counterpoint, the last month for which data is available, Reuters reported. Meanwhile - thanks to low cost, improved technology and an advertising blitz - Chinese brands like Oppo, Lenovo, OnePlus, Gionee and Xiaomi took a combined share of over 50%, compared to just 19% a year ago. In the large and ultra-competitive $120 to $440 mid-market smartphone segment, Chinese vendors have more than doubled their market share to 68%, while Samsung has lost 14 percentage points since November 2015, according to Counterpoint.
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