Jio Phone Triumphs Over Chinese Manufactures, Emerges Market Leader In India With 21 Per Cent Share: Report

Reliance Jio, with a market share of 21 per cent, was the overall market leader in India across all types of handsets in 2018, reports Financial Express.

Citing CounterPoint research, the company claimed that it has secured the top spot in the domestic market due to its 4G feature phone and the attractive offers on tariff plans.

Jio also controls the feature phone segment with 38 per cent of the market share in 2018. Associate Director at CounterPoint Research, Tarun Pathak said, “Reliance Jio captured 38 per cent of the feature phone segment in just over year with its compelling value proposition compared to normal 2G feature phones”.

During the second half of 2018, the Jio Monsoon Hungama offer focused on upgrading 2G feature phone users to 4G, in turn helping Jio to drive sales, Pathak adds.

Highlighting the effect of feature phones in the smart growing smartphone market, Pathak says, “This is the first time that the feature phone market grew faster than the smartphone market. India remains the largest market in terms of global feature phone volume.”

He adds that India and the Middle East were leading in the feature phone market in 2018, with three-fourths of global feature phone sales.

The research firm also notes that Xiaomi and Samsung control the domestic market in smartphones in 2018 with 28 per cent and 24 per cent. The Chinese smartphone maker’s strong product portfolio and aggressive channel strategy helped Xiaomi top the market share.

In 2018, the overall mobile phone shipments crossed 330 million by growing 11 per cent year-over-year (YOY) for the first time and smartphones captured around 44 per cent of the market.

India also became the fastest-growing market for smartphones in 2018, and the smartphone shipments rose 10 per cent YOY. Both Amazon and Flipkart drove the online smartphone shipments to a record 36 per cent.