JioFi rules data card market in Q2 2017

Reliance Retail’s JioFi procured from multiple OEMs accounts for 91% data card market share whereas Huawei stands at 3% in the data card segment in Q2 of 2017.

The shipment of Indian data cards market grew to 4 million over 3.4 million in Q1 2017. The market witnessed 614% sequential growth from Q2 2016 to Q2 2017 according to CMR’s India Data Cards Monthly Market Review.

“LTE/4G data card shipments accounts for 17% sequential growth owing to Mi-Fi devices and has proved to be the most favored technology in the same time period. On the other hand, 3G data card shipments shrinked by 61% in Q2 2017 as compared to the first half of 2017,” said Shipra Sinha Analyst, Industry Intelligence Practice, CMR.

Launch of consecutive free data services followed by availability of Mi-Fi data cards at different prices along with aided the consistent growth of Reliance Jio with 91% during the same time period. The other vendors’ market shares are stagnant by 3% from the last two quarters.

Among Reliance Jio offered MiFi devices, M2S continued to be country’s fastest selling model. JMR1140 stood second while JioFi ranked third.

Mi-Fi’s primarily driven by Jio are gaining acceptance in Tier II and Tier III cities and towns that could result in erosion of potential broadband base for operators like BSNL.

In such towns and cities, users benchmark broadband speed and quality with that of BSNL fixed line broadband, which in majority of the circles for popular plans is 2 Mbps for residential users. Mi-Fi could also slow the pace of 3G to 4G smartphone replacement as the market looks for replacement opportunity in smaller towns and cities.

“RJio’s MiFi devices (JioFi) also impact home router market. Our initial statistics from the channels suggest a decline of 60%-70% sales in major cities. Now it has started affecting the SOHO/SMB router market in other cities and towns as well. To counter competition is attempting to level the equation by offering matching plans, etc. However, I expect Mi-Fi’s to continue cannabalising the entry level router market for few more quarters from now,” said Narinder Kumar, Analyst, Industry Intelligence Practice, CMR.

Data card with data rate of 150 Mbps accounted for 97% of the total market of overall shipments in Q2 2017. Around 92% of data cards were on Qualcomm chipsets during the period.