Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, is trying to shake up the $2 billion phone business by releasing a new kind of $12 internet-connected mobile phone.
With the launch of the “Jio Bharat” phone, Ambani enters the roughly 250 million-strong Indian market for “feature” phones, which are non-smartphone alternatives. Reliance Jio, the data division of Ambani, says it will initially be trial-only.
The $12 product, sold for ₹999, is the latest innovation from Google and Facebook-backed Jio, which in 2016 completely changed India’s mobile telecoms industry by introducing data plans that were initially free as well as incredibly affordable voice rates. Jio and incumbent Bharti Airtel eventually formed an effective duopoly to control the world’s fastest-growing mobile market after the move prompted fierce competition. Jio is a part of the corporate giant Reliance Industries.
According to Jayanth Kolla, founder and partner at Bengaluru-based Convergence Catalyst, Jio’s price plan “made it clear they were going for every Indian out there” from the start.
Kolla stated that 20% of internet subscribers in India still use feature phones and characterized Jio’s most recent action as “mopping up” people with the lowest incomes who had previously been discouraged from going online due to prohibitive costs.
Ambani, Reliance Jio chairman, said: “There are still 250mn mobile phone users in India who remain ‘trapped’ in the 2G era, unable to tap into basic features of the internet at a time when the world stands at the cusp of a 5G revolution.”
