RJio's LYF set to dethrone Samsung from the market leader’s position in Q1, 2018

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In January 2018, Reliance Retail's mobile handset brand, LYF topped the overall mobile handset leaderboard with 27% market share, followed by Samsung at a distant second with 12% share, and itel at third with 8% market share, according to CMR’s India Monthly Mobile Handset Market Review Report for January 2018.

Prabhu Ram, Head – Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR said, “LYF has continued its phenomenal growth from 4Q 2017, beginning the new year on a high. These results underline the importance and dominance of feature phones market segment in India. If LYF is able to maintain its strong performance through the reminder of quarter, we believe LYF is on course to take the top honors in 1Q 2018. This will end Samsung’s continued reign as market leader in the overall mobile handset market.”

“For Samsung to continue maintaining its overall leadership, it would need to increase its shipments in the rest of 1Q 2018 by atleast 25-30%. Going forward, Samsung should ramp up its strategy around the growing and increasingly exciting entry-level smartphone segment. Key areas of consideration for Samsung’s strategy would include introduction of 4G feature phones, joining AndroidGo, as well as handset bundling with telcos,” said he.

Feature phone handset brand shipments had a market share of 72%, while smartphone shipments ended with 28%.  In 4Q 2017, the smartphone market recorded a 19% sequential decline while the featurephone market saw a 36% sequential growth, and YoY growth of 62%. On a YoY basis, feature phones saw a growth of 116%.

In January 2018, the smartphone market continued to be dominated by Xiaomi with 27% market share, while Samsung had a 25% market share, with Lava at third with 8% market share. On the feature phone market, the top three brands were LYF (37.3%), itel (11%) and Samsung (7%).

“One interesting trend that has emerged is the decline of Oppo. In January 2017, Oppo was one of the top four smartphone brands in India with 9% market share. This January, it has moved out of the smartphone leaderboard, ending with a market share of only 4%,” said Narinder Kumar, Analyst, CMR-IIG.