Reliance Jio about to launch 4G VoLTE handset in India that costs just Rs 500 in July. The phone is expected to be launched at the Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting scheduled for July 21. A new tariff plan is also on the cards as the current Dhan Dhana Dhan offer will end this month end. The shipments should start by the end of this month or early-August.
Jio is eyeing on the country’s largest 2G consumers base who still haven’t migrated to 4G network spectrum due to the unavailability of the required handsets. Reliance saw this situation as an opportunity and now is readying to capitalize on it by flooding the market with its 4G devices.
Reliance Jio has already placed an order for 18-20 million of the 4G VoLTE feature phones with some key Chinese original device manufacturers (ODMs) including Zhejiang Techain Electronics Technology Co., Shenzhen CHINO-E Communication Co. With the launch of the low-cost 4G handset, Jio could bring another wave of disruption in the telecom industry and this proactive strategy will allow Jio to strengthen its rural subscriber base.
According to Rajiv Sharma, HSBC director and telecoms analyst “Jio subsidizing each handset by as much as $10-15 (Rs 650-975)”, which indicates that Jio is ready to swap the vast rural subscriber base which in turn cemented their position in Telecom industry.
Jio has a customer base of around 72 million Prime customers and claims to have more than 100 million users on its network, most of which are data users. That would also make Reliance Jio the company with the largest number of data customers. With this latest offering, Reliance seems to ahead in 4G VoLTE race. As it rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are still running trials on VoLTE to launch it commercially.
