Jio steals the show in Q4 as mobile shipments touch record

Reliance Retail's 4G feature phone Lyf has taken the market by a storm, becoming a major growth driver for the fourth quarter of last year. The company owned by Mukesh Ambani's group firm saw its shipments grow over fivefold during the last quarter.

In feature phones, Lyf emerged as the market leader with 27% market pie, followed by Samsung with 14% share, according to a report released by Cyber Media Report on Monday.

The feature phone market witnessed a 36% sequential growth during the fourth quarter of 2017 and an year-on-year growth of 62%.

"This new trend (4G feature phone) led to a surge in market share of feature phones."

Lyf's JioPhone was launched with much fanfare by the new entrant Reliance Jio last year to tap the feature phone market. Users have to pay upfront Rs 1,500, which will be refundable in three years.

There are over 1 billion mobile users in the country, half of which use 2G feature phones for just voice calls and messaging. Subscribers with 2G handsets and 3G feature phones account for 40-45% of revenues for incumbents and effective average revenue per user (Arpu) ranges from Rs 50-100, according to estimates.

This year will continue to witness the growth of entry-level smartphones, which will largely cater to first-time smartphone buyers. Moreover, aggressive, pre-paid 4G entry-level plans launched by telcos in the first quarter of 2018 will further accelerate the adoption of 4G, the report said.

Overall, the mobile handset firms saw a record shipment of 88 million units during the fourth quarter of 2017, with Samsung retaining top position with 21% market share, followed by iTel and Xiaomi with 9% market share each. For the entire year, mobile handset vendors have shipped around 287 million mobile handset units in India.

The smartphone market recorded a 19% sequential decline in Q4 2017, with 30 million units shipped. Overall 4G handset market grew 19%. 4G smartphones declined by 17%, while 4G feature phones grew 546%. 2G feature phones grew 5% and 3G smartphones declined 71% on a small base, according to the report.

Prabhu Ram, head – Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, said, "Traditionally, December is a lean period. However, the fourth quarter bucked this trend. From the throes of demonetisation at the beginning of 2017, the India mobile handset market touched a new historic high in the fourth quarter."

Last year was remarkable with certain pioneering mobile handset brands like HTC, Asus and Gionee, among others, seeing worrisome warning signals, while a new breed of exciting handset brands, like Comio and NUU Mobile, among others, came to the fore. We believe this trend will deepen further in 2018, he said.

SAMSUNG LOSES POLE POSITION

• In feature phones, Lyf emerged as the market leader with 27% market share, followed by Samsung with 14% market share
   
• In smartphones, Xiaomi emerged as the market leader with 25% market share, followed by Samsung with 23% market share