Offline beats online retail in consumer electronics sales

Brick and mortar retailers, who run multi-brand, multi-category consumer electronics stores across the country, are set to outperform online sellers this year—even as overall consumer demand remains low. For smartphones, industry estimates peg sales from physical retailers to grow in low- to mid-single digit year-on-year (y-o-y), while online sales are seen either flat or showing a single-digit fall for 2023.

- Shouvik Das

Shipment estimates shared with Mint by market researcher International Data Corp. (IDC) India projects 35 million-37 million units to be shipped in the December quarter, which could be a 17% y-o-y growth. The latter is expected to be the result of better-than-expected festival season smartphone sales, which has helped brands clear inventories better than last year.

This, however, would not be enough to compensate for the overall drop in organic demand for smartphones—full-year shipment projections by IDC peg 2023’s smartphone sales to be around 143 million units, marking a 1% y-o-y decline.

Physical retailers, however, are seeing a stronger overall year—IDC’s H1CY23 smartphone report from 3 August said while smartphone shipments to online retailers declined 15% y-o-y, those to physical retailers grew 11% y-o-y in the first half. A similar trend is expected to play out in the second half as well.