With 30 per cent market share, Reliance JioPhone has become the leading feature phone brand in India in the first quarter of 2019, Counterpoint Research said on Friday.
While the smartphone market offers a big opportunity, one can't ignore the 400 million feature phones users in the Indian market which too is likely to stay for the next five years in India, said Counterpoint's "India Smartphone Market Share Q1 2019" report.
Samsung stood second in the feature phone category with a share of 15 per cent while domestic handset maker LAVA grabbed the third spot with a market share of 13 per cent.
Unlike the smartphone market, which contracted for the first time in 2018, the feature phone market has continued to grow over the last three years, the report said.
Earlier in March, a Counterpoint Research report had estimated that a little more than 400 million feature phones would be sold globally this year. Feature phone shipments are also expected to cross one billion units by 2021.
Brokerage firm CLSA's telecom sector outlook for February had noted that Jio will lead the subscriber market share this year. Currently, Jio now has a customer base of 30.6 crore.
