Chinese Smartphones Dominate Nepal’s Market with a Surge in Imports

Despite India's rapid expansion in smartphone manufacturing in recent years, Nepal continues to rely heavily on China for its mobile devices, with imports from China seeing a significant rise.

According to customs data, Chinese smartphones have captured an even larger share of the Nepali market in the first seven months of the current fiscal year. A total of 1,204,577 smartphones were imported from China during this period, accounting for a staggering 85.13 percent of all smartphone imports.

This marks a substantial increase from the same period last year, when Nepal imported 953,216 units from China, representing 77.50 percent of total imports. Overall, Nepal imported over 1.4 million smartphones in the first seven months of this fiscal year, an increase of nearly 200,000 units compared to the same period last year.

The dominance of Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, Honor, Realme, and OnePlus is evident. Even popular models from Apple and Samsung, which are assembled in India, are seeing reduced imports from the neighboring country. Imports from India have dropped to just 204,658 units in the review period, making up only 14.46 percent of total imports, down from 272,066 units last year.

The shift comes even as India has increased its budget to promote its electronics industry for the fiscal year 2026/27. Nepal previously also imported a significant number of smartphones from Vietnam.