One of the biggest questions that people have in their mind is, will JioPhone Next be a success? For the unaware, the JioPhone Next is a super affordable Android smartphone that Reliance Jio will be coming out with on September 10, 2021. The smartphone has been developed by Jio in partnership with Google. Everyone knows how successful JioPhone has been in the Indian market. But many are wondering whether JioPhone Next will get the same response from the Indian market.
Recalling JioPhone’s Massive Success
JioPhone was announced in 2017 by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani. According to one of the old LiveMint reports, six million units of JioPhone were booked in the first three days of the company starting the pre-booking for the device on August 24, 2017. Then, in the global feature phone market in Q1 2018, JioPhone held a 15% market share in terms of sales which was the most for any device, followed by Nokia HMD, which held a 14% share.
Four years later, in 2021, as per a note released by Reliance Jio, there are over 100 million JioPhone users in India. These are staggering numbers for a ‘feature phone’ in the era of smartphones. This clearly shows that there are people who want a cheap 4G phone and don’t even want to pay Rs 6,000 and above for their devices.
But will JioPhone Next be the same success?
JioPhone Next Aims to Bring More 4G Users
JioPhone Next will really need to be a solid offering from the company if it wants to do what JioPhone did. The pricing of the device will play a key role in determining its success or failure. There’s hardly anything that Reliance Jio has done, and it has failed. There’s a strong reason behind every move from the company. Thus, I expect that JioPhone Next will be a success as well, given it will be something that will have a unique standing in the market.
While we now know how JioPhone Next looks like and have an idea about its basic features, only its real-life performance will tell us whether the device is worth the money or not. JioPhone Next might face a lot more hardships because users will be comparing the device from other smartphones in the affordable category.
While for feature phones, there are no big competitors for Reliance Jio in the price category it is selling JioPhones’ at. The success or failure of the JioPhone Next will be determined by how many new 4G users hop on to Jio’s mobile networks and not how many JioPhone Next are sold. Reliance Jio wants to make India 2G Mukt, and this device will be a big step for the company in that direction.
