Jio LYF second largest LTE smartphone brand in Q1: Counterpoint

Reliance Jio, which is yet to launch it’s commercial 4G services, has already marked its presence in the country’s fast growing smartphone market. The LYF smartphone brand has emerged as India’s fifth largest smartphone player in its first quarter since launch, according to data from Counterpoint Research, which says that the LYF brand cornered an impressive 7% share of the smartphone market.

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Notably, Jio’s high speed broadband services are being only used by Reliance Industries Limited’s group employees, and their families, along with partners and retailers under the trial run, which was launched in December last year.

Reliance Jio recently revealed that it’s subscriber base has gone beyond half a million with 18 Gbps of average data consumption per month. The telco didn’t give a timeframe, but said that it would be able to launch commercial services once its subscriber base reached a million.

The statement suggests that the company, through Reliance Retail, will increase efforts on building the LYF brand by launching more VoLTE smartphones in coming months. The Counterpoint report said that two of three smartphones shipped in the first quarter of the year supported the high speed 4G broadband services.

“In first quarter of its inception, LYF instantly climbed to become one of the top five smartphone brands in India in terms of shipment volumes,” Tarun Pathak, Senior Analyst at Counterpoint said.

LYF jumped to the second spot in the category of phones supporting 4G, the firm said, adding that the strong shipment was more of ‘channel filling’ and the actual sell-through or sales to end customers, will happen in April to June period as the operator starts full-fledged marketing.