Jiophone emerges leader in Indian feature phone market

Reliance JioPhone scaled a new high in the fourth quarter on 2017, emerging as the market leader in the feature phone segment with 27 per cent share, followed by Samsung at 14 per cent share, a new report said on Monday.

The feature phone market witnessed a 36 per cent sequential growth in the 4Q and Year-on-Year (YoY) growth of 62 per cent in the country.

"JioPhone was major growth driver for the 4Q 2017. Its shipments grew more than five-fold. This new trend led to surge in market share of feature phones. With locally-manufactured JioPhones hitting the market in coming quarters, the vendor is expected to better its performance," Narinder Kumar, analyst at CMR-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), said in a statement.

With 30 million units shipped, the smartphone market recorded a 19 per cent sequential decline in 4Q.

in smartphones, Xiaomi emerged as the market leader with 25 per cent market share, followed by Samsung with 23 per cent market share.

"We are expecting to witness a revival in the online strategy of Samsung along with an enhanced focus on enterprise business in 2018," Kumar said.

According to CMR's "India Monthly Mobile Handset Market Review" report, mobile handset vendors shipped 88 million mobile handset units in the fourth quarter of 2017.

For the entire year, mobile handset vendors shipped around 287 million mobile handset units in India.

Samsung remained the overall leader for 2017 with 21 per cent market share, followed by iTel and Xiaomi with 9 per cent market share each.

"Traditionally, December is a lean period. However, the 4Q 2017 bucked this trend. From the throes of demonetization at the beginning of 2017, the India mobile handset market touched a new historic high in 4Q 2017," said Prabhu Ram, Head-IIG-CMR.

Major Chinese brands saw exceedingly healthy year-on-year growth. On the other hand, some pioneering brands saw their growth decline (YoY).

The year saw alarm bells ringing for handset brands including HTC, Asus, Intex and Gionee.

In the 4Q 2017, overall 4G handset market grew by 19 per cent.

The 4G smartphones declined by 17 per cent while 4G feature phones grew a massive 546 per cent.

"2G feature phones grew by 5 per cent while 3G smartphones declined by 71 per cent on a small base," the report added.