LYF smartphone could be $1-bn brand in 2016-17, says CLSA

Reliance Retail's LYF smartphone could become a USD 1 billion brand in 2016-17 and corner a market share of about 7 per cent, brokerage firm CLSA predicts in a report.
"Achieving about 7 per cent market share of the estimated 137 million smartphone sales in FY17 will mean sales of 10 million units. This could make LYF a USD 1 billion brand using an ASP (average selling price) of USD 100," CLSA said.

The LYF handsets are available in the price range of Rs 4,799-19,499 per unit.
According to CLSA, LYF has launched its own range of smart televisions priced between Rs 65,990-1,99,990 and plans to enter the mobile accessories segment.
Sales growth in LYF smartphones, the firm said, "could drive a 31 per cent year-on-year bump to Reliance Retail's financial year 2016 revenue of Rs 216 billion".

Ahead of its commercial launch, Reliance Jio has thrown open its service to the public on a trial basis for free. A person can buy its SIM only after getting an invite from an employee of a Reliance Industries group firm.
The other rider is he will have to buy an LYF handset being sold by Reliance Digital to avail of the service.
"Sales will also get a boost from the ongoing invite-based offer for Jio's 4G services, which is exclusively for buyers of LYF phones," CLSA said.
Under the scheme, an RIL group firm employee can invite 10 people to buy Jio's 4G SIM cards and LYF handsets. The connection will come bundled with unlimited 4G mobile Internet and phone calls for 90 days, all for free.
"With users getting three months of free data usage along with a large quota of voice minutes and SMS, the value proposition of LYF phones has been further enhanced. This could boost demand at least temporarily," CLSA said.
The company started selling LYF smartphones in January after Reliance Jio offered its 4G service to RIL group employees

Source: TOI

Reliance Jio Money Wallet silently launched on Google Play Store

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd's (R-Jio) digital wallet app JioMoney has made a quiet debut on Google Play Store. JioMoney is a semi-closed prepaid wallet that aims to enable mobile-based transactions, where customers can store money and use it for purchasing goods and services.
With its Jio Money digital wallet, the company aims to enable mom-and-pop shops to accept cashless payments through smartphones.

An industry insider said that the company has tied up with over 50,000 online merchants for the service. With JioMoney, users can do mobile and DTH recharges, send/receive money, make bill payments, pay insurance and other premiums et al.
JioMoney is powered by 4G small cell technology and is said to be platform-independent. Customers can use JioMoney's digital wallet, a Jio Money card or any other credit/debit card directly from the wallet to pay merchant seamlessly and instantly. JioMoney digital wallet also gives consumers the option of opening a Digital Bank Account or linking their existing account. Last October, Jio started testing JioMoney Merchant for small and large merchants. The service allows owners of any kind of business to create an account with the company and start accepting payments.

 

According to the company, the benefits for the merchants include integrated billing & payment system, inventory management, online ordering, accounts and book keeping, customer profile, credit and campaign management.

In November 2015, RBI gave mobile wallet licence to Reliance Payment Solutions for its JioMoney service.

Source: TOI

Reliance launches LYF Water 5 smartphone with 13MP camera & VoLTE support

Reliance has expanded its LYFsmartphone range with the launch of LYF Water 5 smartphone. Priced at Rs 11,699, the LYF Water 5 is exclusively available on Amazon.
The handset comes with dual-sim functionality and VoLTE support like other smartphones in the LYF series. Reliance LYF Water 5 has a 5-inch HD display of 1280x720 pixels resolution protected with Dragontrail glass on top.



Source: TOI

Reliance Jio’s LYF smartphone make it to top 5

While companies across the globe struggled to sell phones last year, India offered them relief with a 23% growth in buying phones.

Peter Richardson, Research Director at Counterpoint Research said, “India which surpassed USA to become the second largest smartphone market in terms of users has continued to register strong demand for smartphone. There is a massive opportunity for every player in the mobile value chain when the second largest market by volume is still under penetrated and growing, while the rest of the world smartphone demand has waned. India is the next China.

“To provide some colour, more than a billion smartphones will be sold in India over the next five years. This will drive the number of smartphone users from quarter of a billion to more than half a billion in the same time period, which will still be just 55% of the total population. Furthermore, the advent of advanced 4G LTE network infrastructure will also be a key catalyst in the country’s smartphone adoption in coming years. The role of players such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel will be important to drive this growth by leveraging an ecosystem-level approach.”

According to their report, Reliance Jio, even before launching their SIM cards to the public has managed to make a dent in the Lyf brand of smartphone market. “A surprise in the quarter was the rise of Reliance Jio’s Lyf brand in first quarter of its inception, to top 5 position in the smartphone segment capturing 7% market share. This is the level of scale Jio is targeting once it switches on its LTE network later this year. We estimate, this quarter strong shipment was more of channel filling, the actual sell-through will happen in Q2 2016 as the operator starts full-fledged marketing and promotional activity. Lyf also instantly jumped to become the second largest LTE phone supplier surpassing Micromax & Lenovo during Q1’16,” said Conterpoint Research.

Source: Hindustan Times