Reliance Jio extended its lead in the Indian Feature Phone market during Q2 2018, according to Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service. Jio secured a market share of 47% at the end of Q2 2018 by capturing almost half of the total feature phone market driven by the success of its JioPhone, its highest ever. Counterpoint predicts that Reliance Jio will likely maintain the growth momentum as it refreshed its JioPhone lineup, coupled with aggressive upgrade offer of Rs 501. Jio is also bringing popular apps such as WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook to JioPhone and JioPhone 2 on August 15, which will likely drive the sales of JioPhone. The feature phone market continues to outpace the smartphone market with a YoY growth of 21%.
“Reliance Jio is likely to maintain the growth momentum as it refreshed its Jiophone coupled with aggressive upgrade offer of INR 501 (<US$10) and bringing popular apps including WhatsApp to Jiophone 2,” said Counterpoint. Back at the end of Q2 2017, Jio had just 0.3% market share, but fast forward to Q2 2018, it now has 47% of share.
South Korean brand, Samsung which had 27% of market share a year ago now has just 9% of share and is closely followed by Nokia (owned by HMD Global) which secured 8% of market share. itel Mobiles and Lava are the fourth and fifth largest feature phone brands with 6% and 5% market shares respectively.
Reliance Jio already kickstarted its JioPhone Monsoon Hungama offer, under which the telco is providing the original JioPhone at just Rs 501 if a customer exchanges the old feature phone purchased post-2015. With this aggressive offer, Jio is looking to boost its subscriber base as well as extend its lead in the feature phone market.
Jio, since August 2017, sold 25 million JioPhones, which is a remarkable achievement. And the telco wants to boost the JioPhone user base to 100 million in the next one year, driven by the Monsoon Hungama offer and JioPhone 2. Jio is yet to reveal an offer on the JioPhone 2, but most likely, it will come out with an introductory offer before the scheduled sale date on August 15.
Arpit spends his day closely following the telecom and tech industry. A music connoisseur and a night owl, he also takes a deep interest in the Indian technology start-up scene and spends rest of his time spilling poetry and stories on paper.
