Reliance Jio beats Huawei as most favoured 4G data card provider

With a surge in 4G adoption in the country, Reliance Jio has replaced Huawei as the most favoured 4G/LTE data card vendor (in terms of market share/unit shipments) in the second half of financial year 2016-2017.

"Market share of Reliance Jio grew from 12 per cent in first half to 77 per cent in the second half due to free data services along with comparatively lower price of its Mi-Fi data cards," said Shipra Sinha, Lead Analyst, Industry Intelligence and Channels Research Practices, CyberMedia Research, in a statement late on Thursday.

Huawei shipments plunged sequentially by 36 per cent. The vendor's market share decreased from 33 per cent in the first half to 10 per cent in the second.

ZTE shipments witnessed 6 per cent sequential growth while other vendors like Alcatel, D-Link saw a fall.

The Indian data cards market registered a 107 per cent jump in the second half of financial year 2016-2017 to 3.6 million over the first half in terms of units shipped, the CMR's monthly market review said.

"Mi-Fi devices led the growth of LTE/4G technology in the second half. LTE based Mi-Fi devices jumped sequentially by 333 per cent in the same period," Sinha added.

Mi-Fi is a portable broadband device that allows multiple end users and mobile devices to share a 3G or 4G mobile broadband Internet connection.

LTE/4G data card shipments witnessed 228 per cent sequential rise to 3.3 million in the second half.

LTE/4G replaced 3G as the most favoured technology in the data cards market.

3G shipments declined sequentially by 67 per cent in the second half of the same period when compared to the first half.

Data cards with data rate of 150 Mbps contributed around 92 per cent to overall shipments.

"Mi-Fi devices are expected to show further rise in the future. In-built 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," Shipra said.

Large number of user support with a single device is also one of the reasons for the growth in Mi-Fi devices.

"Significant push by telecom service providers is also making and continue to make Mi-Fi cards the most favoured option in India," Shipra added.