Reliance launched JioPhone with interesting features on July 21 on the sidelines of the 40th Annual General Body meeting of the company. The latest news is that the Reliance Jio is in touch with Micromax and Intex for the manufacture of JioPhone. The 4G mobile service provider should depend upon the third-party companies since they don’t have a manufacturing facility.
The main purpose behind the launch of JioPhone is to fulfill the aspirations of over 50 million 2G users to migrate to powerful and reliable 4G connectivity. The company disclosed that there are several people who are unable to afford the huge cost of a 4G smartphone. Hence, the JioPhone will help them to experience 4G with the design of a traditional feature phone but with latest features.
There were rumors floating on the mills that Reliance Jio has established a partnership with Intex for the manufacture of the feature phone. We infer that the company has already manufactured few units of the handsets since the team demonstrated the features live during the AGM.
According to The Mobile Indian, the Reliance Jio will most likely establish a partnership with Micromax as well to meet the growing demands. The JioPhone will be practically free with a catch. You have to pay a refundable security deposit of Rs. 1500 to purchase the phone. The amount will be refunded to you after 36 months.
The strategy of Reliance Jio is to negotiate hard with Indian manufacturers in a bid to retain the current pricing strategy. We hope that by the middle of 2018, the Ambani-owned service provider will establish their own manufacturing plant under the Make in India initiative.
The newly launched JioPhone will be available for beta testing from August 15. You can pre-order from August 24 and the smartphone will be delivered to you by September 2017. It remains to be seen as to how Reliance Jio will ship the phone to all customers when they have not yet established any partnership with manufacturers.