Reliance Jio’s Lyf smartphones make it to top 5

Reliance Jio’s Lyf brand in first quarter of its inception, to top 5 position in the smartphone segment capturing 7% market share

Reliance Jio’s Lyf brand rose to the fifth position in the smartphone segment capturing 7% market share in first quarter of 2016.

India with 23 percent growth in smartphone market provided relief to global smartphone-makers as they struggled to sell phones around the world and Reliance Jio's Lyf smartphone also took the opportunity to creep up to the top five spot among smartphones in terms of shipments, a new report by Counterpoint Research showed.

Peter Richardson, Research Director at Counterpoint Research said, "India which surpassed USA to become the second largest smartphone market in terms of users has continued to register strong demand for smartphone. There is a massive opportunity for every player in the mobile value chain when the second largest market by volume is still under penetrated and growing, while the rest of the world smartphone demand has waned. India is the next China.

"To provide some colour, more than a billion smartphones will be sold in India over the next five years. This will drive the number of smartphone users from quarter of a billion to more than half a billion in the same time period, which will still be just 55% of the total population. Furthermore, the advent of advanced 4G LTE network infrastructure will also be a key catalyst in the country's smartphone adoption in coming years. The role of players such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel will be important to drive this growth by leveraging an ecosystem-level approach."

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According to their report, Reliance Jio, even before launching their SIM cards to the public has managed to make a dent in the Lyf brand of smartphone market. "A surprise in the quarter was the rise of Reliance Jio's Lyf brand in first quarter of its inception, to top 5 position in the smartphone segment capturing 7% market share. This is the level of scale Jio is targeting once it switches on its LTE network later this year. We estimate, this quarter strong shipment was more of channel filling, the actual sell-through will happen in Q2 2016 as the operator starts full-fledged marketing and promotional activity. Lyf also instantly jumped to become the second largest LTE phone supplier surpassing Micromax & Lenovo during Q1'16," said Conterpoint Research.