Jio says it is committed to the development of Jio Phone
It is in talks to bring more developers on board the Jio Phone app store
The company says it will soon start the next round of Jio Phone bookings
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With some reports on Monday suggesting claimed to have received 6 million pre-bookings for the Jio Phone and the company insists it plans to follow through. 454x1s
In a statement to Gadgets 360, a Reliance Jio spokesperson said, “Jio Phone, ‘India ka smartphone’ is committed to fulfilling the country’s digital vision. Jio welcomes the initial 6 million Indians who are moving to digital life with the JioPhone and will soon announce the next JioPhone booking date.”
Media reports earlier on Monday claimed development on Jio Phone is being halted as the company explores an Android phone to provide more apps on the platform to s. The handset is based on KAI OS, a fork of the HTML5-based Firefox OS.
However, Gadgets 360 has learned that Jio is working on bringing more apps to the Jio Phone app store, with a focus on the needs of rural consumers. These include the travel apps to book bus tickets, as well as entertainment apps. As reported earlier, it is also in talks to bring Facebook and WhatsApp on its platform. However, as of now, the Jio Phone app store only feature the company’s proprietary apps, such as JioMusic, JioCinema, and others.
The Jio Phone is aimed at the bottom end of the Indian mobile phone market, at consumers who are yet to switch from feature phones to smartphones. According to some estimates, the company originally aimed to sell 100-200 million units of the handset over the next couple of years. Its highlight, of course, is the access to 4G Internet and the zero ‘effective price’; at the time of purchase, though, they still need to pay Rs. 1,500. s can stream music and videos, browse the Web, and even mirror content playing on the phone onto a TV using a proprietary cable.
However, the rollout of the handset has been slow, with the first Jio-branded phone becoming available for pre-bookings only once since its unveiling in July. The delivery has been slow as well, with consumers in urban areas getting their units in late October for bookings made in August.
In the meantime, rival telecom operators have started partnering with phone makers to bringing down the cost of not just feature phones but also Android phones, thus lowering the entry barrier to smartphones. Airtel has partnered with Karbonn and Celkon to offer Android phones at 4G feature phone at Rs. 2,200, and unlimited Internet access with its Rs. 97 recharge.
In fact, Jio has done something similar to what Airtel and Vodafone did in the recent past, and brought down the effective price of two Lyf-branded Android handsets; Lyf C451 was brought down to Rs. 2,692.
Notably, instead of exploring another phone, Jio can just choose to bring down the prices of these handsets – or other Lyf phones – further by giving deeper discounts, à la Vodafone and Airtel.
The Jio Phone looks awesome but is there any catch? We discussed that on our weekly technology podcast Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS or just listen to this episode by hitting the play button below.