Reliance JioPhone leads Indian feature phone market in Q4, 2017: CMR

Reliance Jio's smart feature phone, JioPhone, became the top selling feature phone in India in Q4, 2017, according to the latest report by CMR. Reliance Jio is followed by Samsung which has 14% market share.

Overall, the feature phone market saw a 36% sequential growth in the 4Q and Year-on-Year (YoY) growth of 62% in the country.

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

"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.

In smartphones, Xiaomi emerged as the market leader with 25% market share, followed by Samsung with 23% 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% market share, followed by iTel and Xiaomi with 9% 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%.

The 4G smartphones declined by 17% while 4G feature phones grew a massive 546%. "2G feature phones grew by 5% while 3G smartphones declined by 71% on a small base," the report added.