Jio working with Nokia, others for affordable 4G mobile push: Senior executive
Reliance Jio is working with featurephone makers including Transsion's Itel, Lava and Nokia to make their own versions of affordable JioBharat 4G devices, in a bid to push around 250 million 2G users to go for 4G and beyond, a top company executive said.
The telco is also set to announce an enhanced version of its Rs 999-priced 4G phone with support for UPI payments, WhatsApp and live TV streaming.
«We wanted to establish the product in the market and in the minds of the consumer, so they could associate with it, relate with it...Today, all brands, whether it's Itel, Lava or Nokia, are in touch with us in terms of how do we make it happen,» Sunil Dutt, president (devices division) at Reliance Jio, told ET.
Dutt said a typical 2G user isn't comfortable using a smartphone, finding it expensive and prone to malfunctions. Affordability, he said, is the biggest factor, and Jio's new push into the featurephone market is done in a manner to lower the cost of ownership.
The JioBharat phones come with special 4G monthly plans which Dutt said are priced much lower than competition.
«This is the most exploited customer and surprisingly our competitors have no sense of regret in exploiting them too.
Our next-door neighbours charge ?180 to this customer and give them 2GB data, which, on a 2G network, a customer cannot even consume efficiently,» Dutt said.
Featurephone hardware is standardised, but there is no content that customers can consume on it, he said. «For a 30% lower price, we are giving this customer live TV with 450+ channels, latest films, thousands of songs, IPL streaming, and a whole lot of other content,» Dutt said.
He added that Jio has even introduced UPI payments with a scan-and-pay option.
