Jio Phone Continues to Lead India's Feature Phone Market in Q2 2018: IDC

Reliance Jio, the telecom operator and the main driver of the 4G feature phone segment with its Jio Phone, remained the top vendor in the overall feature phone market in India in the second quarter of this year, according to data from International Data Corporation (IDC).

The feature phone market remained resilient with shipments of 44 million units in the second quarter of 2018, registering a growth of 29 percent over the same quarter last year, showed IDC India's "Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker" report on Monday.

However, with 19 million units, the 4G feature phone market saw a decline of 10 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to IDC, which believes that this drop is due to Jio Phone inventory buildup from first quarter of 2018.

Reliance Jio, in a bid to clearing its inventory, recently introduced the "Monsoon Hungama" feature phone exchange offer and brought popular apps like WhatsApp, YouTube on Jio Phone.

The 2G feature phone segment continued to decline further as local players struggle for survival in this segment which is losing relevance due to the aggressive push in the 4G feature phone segment by Reliance Jio, the report said.

Will Jio Phone 2 help WhatsApp, YouTube reach the next billion users in India? We discussed that on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.