Vivo is gearing up to launch its Z Series smartphones in India. The Z series, is positioned for the online channel segment. Vivo was the third largest smartphone vendor in India, in Q1 2019, per our latest report available here from the Handset Country Share Tracker (HCST) Service.

Vivo has largely been reliant on the offline channel segment, for growth in India and has actively engaged the brick and mortar retail stores, with higher margins. However, this channel strategy has under gone a change of lately.  It launched its own e-store in 2018. Detailed analysis on Indian smartphone channels is available here.  

Vivo has to build up its online presence not just to grow its volumes further but also to defend its position against new age competitors such as from Realme. The latter grew to be among the top five smartphone vendors in India, largely on the back of its Online channel strategy.