Jio will belaunching a series of cheap 4G feature phones that will come with VoLTEcapability. This can be anothergroundbreaking achievement if the Mukesh Ambani-owned company is able todeliver. The availability of cheap 4G phones is bound to have a negative effect on the growth of smartphone industry.
Accordingto a report by Economic Times, Reliance Jio will soon launch a new productcategory. Given that 2G feature phones still sell in high-numbers, these devices aresimilarly priced and yet offer much more productivity in the form of 4Gcapability and free voice calls.
The Indianphone user base is still governed by feature-phone users. Despite thesmartphone revolution in the past couple of years, 65 per cent of phone usersare still sticking to feature phones as their daily drivers.
Jio waslaunched on September 5 and given the amount of popularity it gained, due toits ground breaking offers, the telecom operator soon broke the world record ofmaximum users in the shortest time. However, with this new development inprogress, the company will be able to tap into a much wider demography offeature-phone users.
The primaryusage of feature-phone users is voice calls and if the new telecom company isable to deliver that at negligible to no price, along with added benefits likevideo calls, it can provide a tremendous surge in sales of these low-priceddevices.
"If VoLTE feature phones come into the market, then there won't be a driving force pushing for the upgrade to smartphones; rather it will be an upgrade from feature phones to VoLTE feature phones," said Faizal Kawoosa, principal analyst at Cybermedia Research. "It will be a challenging time for the smartphone market, which could see flat growth in 2017."
The telecomcompany will be partnering with Indian smartphone manufacturer Lava for thehardware and might also sell with dual branding.
In thecurrent market for 4G phones, the cheapest devices are selling at a minimumprice of Rs 3,000. Jio plans to bring that bracket lower to Rs 1,000-Rs 1,500by launching an this new product category.