Reliance Jio feature phone dominates global, domestic markets in 2018

Reliance Jio’s 4G feature phone — Jio Phone — dominated the global and domestic feature phone market during the 2018 calendar year (CY), accounting for 15% of the worldwide market and more than one-third of the Indian market during the period.

According to the latest numbers by Counterpoint Research, in CY2018, Jio was the market leader with 38% share, followed by Samsung (13%), iTel (8%), Nokia HMD and Lava at 7% each. Globally, JioPhone accounted for 15% of the market closely followed by iTel at 14% and HMD Nokia at 13%. Samsung held 7% global market share last year followed by Tecno (6%) and Lava (3%).

In 2018, the global feature phone market grew 7% YoY to 480 million units with Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa (MEA) being the only regions recording growth last year, Counterpoint said, adding that India logged the maximum feature phone shipments in 2018, which grew 11% YoY to 187 million units.