For first time, Apple is top 5 phone maker in India with 30% value share, says analyst

Apple’s business continues to gather momentum in India, with the iPhone landing among the top five smartphone brands there for the first time in the third quarter, claims CMR India.

This is pretty significant, given the growing economic value of India’s market.

Tim Cook really got India right

It also justifies Apple CEO Tim Cook’s original push to build up Apple’s presence in India, initially for sales but swiftly after also for manufacturing.

During Apple’s recent Q4 25 fiscal call, Cook noted the company had achieved an “all-time record” for smartphone sales in India over the year.

India’s smartphone market saw 7% year-on-year growth, the analysts said.

Apple’s 9% share put it in fifth place, behind Xiaomi (13%), OPPO (13%), Samsung (15%), and Vivo (18%). But those relative percentages don’t tell the whole story, which is that iPhone market share in India is surging, achieving 42% Y-o-Y growth – faster than anyone.

Here’s the chart:

Where the value is

It’s not just about the number of phones sold, but also about the value of those phones. In its usual pattern, Apple doesn’t miss a trick, its 9% share by volume gave it 30% share by value, far above closest rival Samsung with 22%. All the other players scrabble over the remaining value in the market.

The older generation iPhones (iPhone 16 and 15 series) together accounted for 82% of Apple’s portfolio in Q3 2025. The iPhone 17 series and iPhone 16e, each contributed 8%.

In the background, India’s consumers are shifting to smart- from feature phones and racing to adopt 5G for the bandwidth benefits.

Why it matters

To put a little significance around this data, India is the fastest-growing economy on the planet, and is already the world’s fourth-largest, according to the IMF.

On current form it is expected to become the third-largest economy by 2028.

For Apple, success in India buys the company another decade of life while its traditional markets continue to endure widening wealth inequality, growing poverty, social, political, and economic upheaval under the leadership of tin-eared politicians who lack any real answers to any of these problems, other than rehashed hatreds and punitive taxation.

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