After establishing a name for themselves in wireless services, Mukesh Ambani’s Jio is now planning to dominate the telecom industry with a ₹4,000 android phone to be released soon. The phone will come paired with cheap tariff plans. Reliance Industries asked it’s suppliers to push their production capacity to accommodate a demand of about 200 million smartphones in the coming year. This target would be a massive boost for the local production industry, which aligns the objectives of the billionaire with that of the government in the country.
Earlier in July, Reliance entered a $4.5 billion deal with Google to work on technology initiatives. While Reliance is a stand-alone unit on the big plan for now, chances are that Google will join hands with them once the regulatory review is completed for the deal. If Reliance is able to put this new device in a good position, chances are that the popularity of Chinese brands such as Xiaomi will fall. Neil Shah, research director of Counterpoint Research said,“Jio has an opportunity to target more than half billion Indians who don’t own a smartphone and trigger a blue ocean market opportunity. With Reliance expected to work with Indian vendors, Chinese brands will lose out on a potential opportunity and market share.”
Recently, Ambani mentioned that millions of Indians were still trapped in the 2G era due to their lacking devices. This new phone is targeted at bringing them out to the current generation of telecom industry. The pandemic has created a need for basic gadgets and internet services in almost every household. In a country like India, coming up with a phone under rupees 5,000, paired with a decent tariff rate might prove to be the turning point for Jio in the telecom industry, establishing it as a sole-dominant force. While the actual statement from Jio is yet to be made public, chances of seeing a Jio device in the market are quite bright.
