In the Reliance Industries Ltd AGM 2020, the company announced that its subsidiary Jio is partnering up with Google to manufacture some of the cheapest 4G smartphones in the market with Android powering them. The cost of the smartphones announced was as low as Rs 4,000 ($54). This is going to give jitters to low-cost smartphone brands such as Xiaomi and Realme and more. As per a new Bloomberg report, RIL has asked the local manufacturers to upgrade the production capacity to facilitate in the making of up to 200 million smartphones in the coming two years. More on the story ahead.
Reliance Targets to Sell 200 Million $50 Smartphones in Next Two Years
When Mukesh Ambani came out with Jio, it revolutionised the Indian telecom space in a matter of months. So there is a possibility that these new cheap smartphones in the price segment of $50 might change the smartphone industry in a drastic manner as well. Such aggressive pricing will have a major impact on the sales of popular and hit Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and Realme. Another thing which will be working for Jio and against these Chinese brands is that all the smartphones that Jio will manufacture will be made in India. It will further motivate the Indian customers to get smartphones of Jio and save some money. Of course, this is not the first time Mukesh Ambani is going to sell Android smartphones in the market. A few years back, Jio announced its own subsidiary LYF which manufactured low-cost smartphones. But that didn’t work out since the smartphones were not that good. Even though they were priced cheap, they didn’t perform the way other smartphones in the near price segment were doing. Mukesh Ambani had expressed his wish of seeing India become ‘2G Mukt’ and thus if these $50 smartphones are a hit, then people will be able to access 4G network at a very low cost. They will be able to do basic things such as sending texts on WhatsApp, watching videos on YouTube pretty comfortably with this smartphone. It will be interesting to see when will Jio announce its new smartphone in the market and what kind of response it will get.
