India’s festive sale moves smartphone demand, doesn’t create it: Techarc

• 17 Oct 2026
• TM Team
• 0 Comments

India’s festive smartphone sale rearranges when people buy far more than it changes how many of them do, according to a new report released today by Techarc, the independent technology market research firm.

The report, India Smartphone Festive Season — Insights & Gain Score, analyses 301 smartphones sold online in India between January 2025 and August 2026, using buyer ratings rather than shipment estimates to measure demand. It finds that buyer activity rose 1.8 times during the October–November 2025 festive window, then fell back to its pre-season level within a month, at 0.97 times.

The most counterintuitive finding concerns the entry segment. Entry (up to ₹12,000) was the only price band where activity fell during the festive window, to 0.72 times its pre-season rate, while Premium (₹25,000–50,000) rose 2.13 times and Mid (₹12,000–25,000) rose 2.00 times. Entry buyers, the report concludes, do not use a festive discount to buy cheaper; they use it to stretch into a mid-range phone.

Faisal Kawoosa, Chief Analyst, Techarc, said: “A festive sale is substitution in time, not market growth. The industry plans for the season as though it creates demand. What the data shows is that it borrows from the months on either side of it. The genuinely new finding is at the bottom of the market — the buyer who would have spent ₹10,000 in a normal month spends ₹15,000 in a sale month. That is a trade-up, not a discount.

The report also documents an inversion in India’s pricing cycle. Of smartphones launched in 2026, 69 per cent now sell above their own launch price and only 7 per cent have cut price, the reverse of the 2025 cohort. Measured against last festive season, Mid is 24.4 per cent dearer and Entry 18.5 per cent, while Luxe (above ₹1,00,000) is 3.5 per cent cheaper.

Kawoosa added: “The discount ladder has inverted, and it has inverted regressively. The bands that carry the festive lift are precisely the ones where list prices rose most this year. Brands will be discounting against an inflated base, and buyers who tracked prices last season will notice. This year, a flat price is already a concession.”

The report also measures Gain Score, a single measure from 0 to 100 of how well placed a brand, model or chipset is to gain during the festive sale. It combines three observable signals: expected festive selling rate, recent momentum against phones of the same age, and buyer sentiment.

On that measure, Vivo leads brands at 100, ahead of Apple at 91 and Realme at 85. Realme P4 leads models at 100, followed by vivo T4 Pro at 99.

Among silicon vendors, MediaTek leads at 100 on 54.3 per cent of festive demand across 110 models, with Qualcomm at 82 on 34.3 per cent and 65 models. The highest-scoring individual chipset in the market is Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, a mid-range part, at 100.

Mid and Premium together account for 93 per cent of expected festive demand, leaving 7 per cent for everything above ₹50,000 and below ₹12,000. Ten models carry a third of all demand and twenty carry half.

Specifications have largely stopped separating winners. 5G now adds about 1 per cent to a phone’s price and faster charging nothing measurable, while buyer dissatisfaction has a large effect: five additional points of one-star share is associated with roughly 54 per cent lower selling rate.