Reliance Jio aims for 2G-to-4G market with JioBharat V2 phone
₹999, from 7 July targeting India’s 250 million feature phone users that use data-devoid 2G devices. The carrier said Monday that the phone will be available across all offline channels including Jio and Reliance Retail stores. The device will allow phone users to access JioCinema, JioSaavn, FM Radio, and make UPI payments through JioPay, at plans starting ₹123 a month.
The telco will conduct a beta trial for the first one million Jio Bharat phones. "There are still 250 million mobile phone users in India who remain ‘trapped’ in the 2G era, unable to tap into basic features of the internet at a time when the world stands at the cusp of a 5G revolution. Six years ago, when Jio was launched, we made it clear that Jio will leave no stone unturned to democratize internet and pass the benefits of technology to every Indian," said Akash Ambani, chairman, Reliance Jio.
The telco also launched ‘Jio Bharat Platform’ which can be used by other handset makers to launch the 4G device. Karbonn and Reliance Retail will be the first ones to adopt this platform. “This aims to target that now with a platform centric approach.
4G featurephones contribute to less than 1% of the featurephone sales and featurephone to smartphone transition has slowed down due to high learning curve for a lot of Indian rural users," said Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research. 4G is still a significant opportunity in India considering the 5G devices remain elusive from the sub ₹10,000 segment, he added. This will be the carrier’s second attempt at upgrading 2G users to 4G, after it launched the 4G-enabled featurephone JioPhone in 2017 and managed to sell over 100 million units till 2021, as per Counterpoint data.
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