At a time when India stands at the doorsteps of the 5G era, Reliance Jio is preparing to launch an affordable 5G smartphone soon, probably under the price range of Rs 5,000. The company will gradually reduce the price to Rs 2,500-3,000 per unit when it scales up the operation, according to a senior official.
The company hopes to target over 20 crore mobile phone users who still use 2G connection in India, said experts.
Although there is no confirmation yet whether this handset will run on Android or not, chances are very high that this will be an Android phone.
At present, 5G smartphones are available in the country in the price range beginning from Rs 25,000.
It is to be noted that Jio was the first company that launched 4G mobile phones free for customers where they had to pay a refundable deposit for a Jio Phone.
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani also asserted to make India free of 2G connections and highlighted the need to speed up migration of 350 million Indians (currently who use 2G feature phones) to an affordable smartphone.
The Indian billionaire business magnate had also announced Rs 33,737 crore investment by tech giant Google for a 7.7% stake in Jio Platforms, adding Jio will collaborate with the US-based company to make an Android-based smartphone operating system.
India’s largest telecom operator is also working on its own 5G network equipment and has asked the telecommunications department to allocate it spectrum for testing.
Currently, the country does not have 5G services – the latest generation of wireless technology – and the Indian government has not even allocated spectrum to telecom service providers for running trials aimed at boosting domestic ecosystem for the next-gen technology.