Reliance Jio beats Huawei to take top position in Data Card markets in H2 FY 16-17

The Indian Data Cards market registered a 107 percent jump in H2 FY 2017-2017 to 3.6 million over H1 FY 2016-2017, in terms of units shipped, according to CMR's India Data Cards monthly market review Mar-2017.

The other important finding from the report is that LTE/4G has replaced 3G as the most favored technology in the Data Cards market. 3G shipments declined sequentially by 67 percent in H2 FY2016-2017, when compared to H1. LTE/4G Data Card shipments witnessed 228 percent sequential rise to 3.3 million.

"Reliance Jio grew from 12% in H1 FY 2016-2017 to 77% in H2 FY 2016-2017 due to its free data usage policy and considerably low prices of MiFi data cards," said Shipra Sinha, Lead Analyst, Industry Intelligence and Channels Research Practices, CyberMedia Research. She further added, “Mi-Fi devices led the growth of LTE/4G technology in H2 FY2016-2017. LTE based Mi-Fi devices jumped sequentially by 333 percent in H2 FY2016-2017.”

Further, Reliance Jio replaced Huawei as the most favored vendor in H2 FY 16-17, in terms of market share (Unit shipments). Market share of Reliance Jio grew from 12 percent in H1 to 77 percent in H2 due to free data services along with the comparatively lower price of its Mi-Fi Data Cards.

Huawei shipments plunged sequentially by 36 percent in 2H. The vendor’s market share decreased from 33 percent in H1 to 10 percent in H2 FY2016-2017. ZTE shipments witnessed 6 percent sequential growth in H2 while other vendors like Alcatel, D-Link saw fall in H2 of the year.

Reliance Jio's JioFi 3 was the fastest moving model followed by JioFi 2 on number two position.Huawei E3372H-607 was on the third spot. Data Cards with data rate of 150 Mbps contributed around 92 percent to overall shipments in H2 FY2016-2017. Around 59 percent of Data Cards were sold with operator bundling in H1 that increased to around 95 percent in H2 FY2016-2017.

“Mi-Fi devices are expected to show a further rise in the future. Inbuilt battery with anywhere, anytime data connectivity because of the various affordable data plans in Mi-Fi devices are the key features contributing to its growth. A large number of user support with a single device is also one of the reasons for the growth in Mi-Fi devices. The significant push by telecom service providers is also making and continue to make Mi-Fi cards the most favored option in India,” Shipra concluded.