Reliance JioFi dominates data card market in Q2 2017; Huawei left distant second

**Reliance Retail's** JioFi continued to dominate data card segment with a market share of 91 per cent — leaving **Huawei** far behind at three per cent — during the second quarter of the calendar year 2017. [caption id=“attachment_3994071” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] JioFi[/caption] The huge lead was attributed to the launch of consecutive free data services by Reliance Retail followed by availability of Mi-Fi data cards at different prices, according to a report by CyberMedia Research (CMR) released on Thursday. Mi-Fis driven by Jio have gained acceptance in tier-2 and tier-3 cities and towns, which could result in erosion of potential broadband base for operators like BSNL. “Reliance Jio’s Mi-Fi devices ( **JioFi** ) have also impacted home router market. Our initial statistics from the channels suggest a decline of 60-70 per cent sales in major cities,” said Narinder Kumar, Analyst, Industry Intelligence Practice, CMR, in a statement. The other players were confined to limited market share, like **ZTE** (three per cent) and **Alcatel** (two per cent). The report said that the overall shipment of data cards grew to 4 million in Q2 — an increase of 16 per cent over the 3.4 million units in Q1 and 614 per cent year-on-year (YoY). LTE/4G data card shipments accounted for 17 per cent sequential growth in Q2 owing to Mi-Fi devices, becoming the most favoured technology. Data card with data-rate of 150 Mbps accounted for 97 per cent of the total shipments with around 92 per cent of them built on Qualcomm chipsets, the report added. Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.