Shipment of Indian data cards grew to 4 mn, JioFi continues to dominate with 91% market share

According to the new report CMR, the shipment of Indian data cards market grew to 4 million (16 percent) over 3.4 million in 1Q CY2017, while the market witnessed 614 percent sequential growth from 2Q CY2016 to 2Q CY2017.

"LTE/4G data card shipments account for 17 percent 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 shrunk by 61 percent in 2Q CY2017 as compared to the first half of CY2017" stated Shipra Sinha Analyst, Industry Intelligence Practice at CMR.

The report said that, a 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 percent during the same time period, whereas Huawei only at 3 percent in the Data card segment, 2Q CY2017.

Further, LTE/4G data cards affirmed its top position with 17 percent sequential growth, 2Q CY2017 in case of units shipped.

The other vendors' market shares are stagnant by 3 percent from the last two-quarters. The units shipped of Alcatel witnessed the fastest growth of 522 percent in 2Q CY2017, whereas ZTE and D-Link shipments registered a decline of 21 percent in case of former and 82 percent in case of latter respectively. Among Reliance Jio offered MiFi devices, M2S continued to be country's fastest selling model. JMR1140 stood second while JioFi ranked third.

CMR pointed out that 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 the 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 the 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.

"LTE/4G data card shipments account for 17 percent 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 shrunk by 61 percent in 2Q CY2017 as compared to the first half of CY2017" stated Shipra Sinha Analyst, Industry Intelligence Practice at CMR.

The data cards offering a data rate of 150 Mbps accounted for 97 percent of the total market of overall shipments in 2Q CY2017. Around 92 percent of data cards were on Qualcomm Chipsets during the period.