Just four months after its launch, Reliance Jio’s handset brand Lyf has emerged as the fifth largest smart phone retailer in India. Within its first quarter in the market, Lyf has captured a 7% market share.Lyf is also the second largest provider of 4G enabled smart phones.
4G speeds up sales
Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint, said that Reliance’s climb was an instant one. In the period between January and April, 1.7 million Lyf smart phones were shipped into India. The high demand for Lyf phones in the market is driven by their 4G feature. Two out of every three phones shipped supplied this high speed internet service.
Strategy and expansion
As Reliance has begun its full-fledged marketing strategy, the actual sell through that began in April will continue till June. Jio is testing its service on five lakh users, many of whom use Lyf phones. When this user base expands to a million customers, the company will launch full scale operations.
Contributions to the Indian market
Reliance Jio led by
MukeshAmbani has been called
“a key player to watch out for” and
“a key catalyst”when it comes to India’s adoption of smart phone technology. Reliance is a major contributor to the expansion of the Indian smart phone market, which grew 23% at a time when the global smart phone market was flat on-year.
A better customer experience
Under the brand Lyf, Reliance has launched four series of smart phones named Fame, Fire, Earth, and Water. The company offers a range of prices starting at Rs 5,500 to Rs 19,500. All phones are preloaded with Jio apps such as Jio chat, my Jio, Jio Money, Jio Beats, Jio express news, Jio Mags, Jio on demand, and Jio play. These apps will reduce the need to search and download apps, making the customer’s experience more efficient.
Effective branding
Reliance Jio successfully promoted Lyfat the Indian Premier League by emblazoning Lyf’s logo on the right arm of Mumbai Indian players. Underneath this logo was the tagline ‘Smartphone+’. This tagline is effective in representing the fact that Lyf is an entire ecosystem consisting of Jio’s 4G service and media services, such as on-demand video and music, rather than just another smart phone brand. Before the start of Smartphone+sales, the company strategically pushed handsets with Jio sim cards into third party distribution networks.
More affordable services
Reliance Jio’s expansion into the wireless data sector was eagerly anticipated because of the revolutionary change that Mukesh Ambani brought about thirteen years ago. Just as he was able to reduce call tariffs from Rs. 3 per minute to just 40 paise, Mr. Ambani promises that by 2017, Jio users will be able to consume 10GB per month on average.
Despite the fact that smart phones are the only form of access to the Internet for most Indians, the average monthly data usage is roughly 600MB in India. The demand for wireless data is high, but consumption is low because of a reluctance of companies like Idea and Bharti Airtel to reduce prices.In contrast, Reliance Jio plans to offer low data tariff.
Summary
Reliance Jio’s smart phone brand Lyfhas captured 7% of the market share, making it the fifth largest provider of smart phones and second largest player in the 4G-enabled smart phone market in India.