The latest effort by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s telecom division to capture market share in India’s vast and underserved hinterlands was announced by Reliance Jio.
They will offer a 4G feature phone priced at 999 rupees ($12.19).” To target individuals who have not yet made the switch to smartphones, Jio, which is renowned for upending the Indian telecom industry in the past decade by launching low-cost tariffs, will roll out entry-level phones with internet services, like digital payment. In a statement, Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio, highlighted that 250 million Indians are still ‘trapped’ in the 2G age, using old mobile phones. This situation arises amidst the ongoing global 5G revolution.
The decision may also help Jio maintain its dominance in the telecom industry, where it now has 439 million subscribers, considerably surpassing rivals Vodafone Idea (VODA.NS) and Bharti Airtel (BRTI.NS). After the tariff disruption in 2016, Jio launched the 4G JioPhone smartphone in 2021, priced at 6,499 rupees. However, despite a price decrease and an initial increase in sales, the device is finding only a small number of buyers, according to market research by IIFL Securities released in May. According to Counterpoint Research, sales of 4G feature phones currently account for less than 1% of all feature phone sales in India. Jio Bharat intends to close the learning curve gap that many rural Indian users have while upgrading from feature phones to smartphones, according to Tarun Pathak, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.
Feature phones are the ones that perform better than more basic models but fall short of smartphones in terms of functionality. Pathak continued, “Given that 5G devices are still difficult to find in the sub-10,000 rupee price range, 4G is still a significant opportunity in India and will also help Jio give consumers a taste of its services ecosystem.” The company has announced that the beta test for the initial one million JioBharat phones, as they are referred to, will commence on July 7.
This testing phase will be conducted in approximately 6,500 tehsils or sub-districts throughout India. Parent company Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) stated last year that it was collaborating with Google to introduce a low-cost 5G smartphone, but it has not revealed any additional information regarding the rollout.
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