Decades ago when reliance ventured into cellular services it introduced handsets worth Rs 500 which made it an instant hit and it became a household name. Seems like it is on another encore with the report of the launch of world’s cheapest smartphones reportedly priced at Rs.999.
The company is looking to launch feature phones with voice over LTE (VoLTE) capability targeting rural and TIER 3 markets for their mobile business and data services . According to a report of Economic times the prices would be as low as INR 1000 with free and they would come bundled up with unlimited voice call, data ,video calling and other basic digital content . There would be two models priced at INR 1000 & 1500 and reported to hit the market by first quarter of 2017.
Key Features :
- The VoLTE feature phones will have Keypads
- Front facing & Rear cameras
- Will run on lighter version of Android Operating System
- Will have Jio’s pre-installed apps such as Jio chat, Jio Live TV, Video on demand and Jio Money
Jio is planning to push it’s digital wallet service Jio money through these feature phones . It is interesting to note that Reliance Jio is the only telecom network in India to have VoLTE service . Jio which added 25 million subscribers in the shortest span of time from 5th September 16 till date, aims at acquiring 100 million users through these phones .Primary aim is to capture the rural and tier 3 markets . India is currently third in the world in terms of Mobile users and 60% of users still use feature phones . This move if implemented properly can prove to b masterstroke by Reliance telecom in taking the lead in the feature phone market .
This is not for the first time a for a telecom company to come up with such an offer . Few months back Freedom 251 announced the launch of cheapest smartphone at INR 251 . It received millions of registrations within few hours of the launch . Later on it turned out to be a dupe much to the people’s disappointment ,with government intervention customers were able to get their money back . Although reliance has managed to build the trust by already providing users free unlimited data and voice calls, we hope this not to be just another hoax .
