After creating a storm in the telecom market with its low Mobile Data and voice prices, Reliance Jio is likely to launch a new 4G VoLTE feature phone worth Rs 500 within this month. The 4G VoLTE feature phone is to be priced Rs 500. This launch would bring in another wave of disruption in the telecom market.
According to a report by The Economics Time, the 4G VoLTE feature phone might be launched around Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting, which is scheduled to take place on July 21, 2017.
The ET report quoted HSBC Director and Telecom Analyst, Rajiv Sharma, “Jio is likely to price its 4G feature phone at Rs 500 to lure 2G subscribers to directly switch to 4G, which implies that Jio subsidising each handset by as much as $10-15 (Rs 650-975).”
Sharma expects the launch of Jio’s4G feature phone “to happen anytime from now” if the company is targeting urban low-end customers. But if the target market for the device is rural, he feels, “the next couple of months may not be a good time since rural markets are linked to farming with seasonal cash flows, with the cash collection months being October and February when they, typically, harvest and sell their products in the market.”
Besides this, the report also said that the telecom company may also introduce new data and call plans as the Dhan Dhana Dhan plan is about to close by the end on this month.
After a speedy start, Jio has witnessed a downfall in the pace of its customer acquisition mainly due to limited availability of affordable 4G handsets in the market. As of April 2017, Jio has 112.55 million subscribers.
Jio is the only telecom operator which runs on 4G VoLTE network. All other telecom operators are still running trials on VoLTE but haven’t launched it yet.