Reliance Jio Feature Phone Launch Likely to Happen this Month Itself: Report

Reliance Jio is long rumored to launch the 4G VoLTE enabled feature phone at an affordable price. A new report says that the company might announce the much-awaited device at the Annual General Meeting on July 21, alongside a new tariff plan successor to the Jio Dhan Dhana Dahn offer.

• Make Telecom Talk My Trusted Source
• 
• 

A report from Economic Times says that the brokerage HSBC has put the price of the device as low as Rs. 500. With this move, Jio could create another wave of disruption in the Indian telecom market.

Some people familiar with the matter spoke to the publication as “The launch — which some believe could be announced at parent Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting on July 21— would follow Jio’s likely announcement of a new tariff plan with aggressive price-points over the next couple of days with its 84-day Dhan Dhana Dhan offer announced on April 11.”

Also, the report revealed the price of the feature phone as paltry Rs. 500. Furthermore, HSBC director and telecoms analyst spoke with ET as “at a paltry Rs 500 (sub-$8) to lure 2G subscribers to directly switch to 4G”, which implies “Jio subsidising each handset by as much as $10-15 (Rs 650-975).”

It is also said that Jio is looking to announce yet another aggressive tariff plan. The new tariff plan, alongside the 4G VoLTE feature phone will boost the subscriber addition of Jio further.

To recall, Jio added 100 million subscribers in just 172 days since its inception in September 2016. However, the subscriber addition has seen a downfall in the last two months because Jio started charging its customers under the Dhan Dhana Dhan offer. In April 2017, Jio added just 3.9 million subscribers, down from the March 2017’s 5.83 million subscribers.