India is really opening up to Xiaomi
The Chinese company is closing the gap between itself and Samsung in the world's second biggest phone market, says Strategy Analytics research.
The Redmi Note 4 India edition.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi 's India strategy appears to paying off, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Xiaomi, Samsung and Apple were the preferred choice for their next phones , said the firm's report which surveyed 2,000 participants.
As the world's second largest smartphone market, India has become a hot battleground for phone manufacturers as they try to tap into the fast growing market. While Samsung is still top dog, Xiaomi appears to be catching up in India despite increasingly fierce competition from other Chinese brands such as Lenovo and Vivo.
"Xiaomi for the first time since it started operations in the Indian market was ranked among the top three vendors in Q4 2016," said Rajeev Nair, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics.
Interestingly, the report also highlighted that LTE speeds seem to be a huge draw, while features such as camera megapixel size and image quality aren't really that important for Indian consumers.
Special Reports: CNET's in-depth features in one place.
Technically Literate: Original works of short fiction with unique perspectives on tech, exclusively on CNET.