According to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Reliance Jio will soon release a laptop for just 15,000 rupees ($184), making it among the most affordable options available in India, in an effort to build on the success of its low-cost phone.
Reliance, owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is renowned for upending industries with aggressive price competition. With affordable 4G data plans and free voice services in 2016, Jio, its telecoms division, is credited with upending the second-largest mobile market in the world. It followed that up the previous year with its $81 4G JioPhone.
The 4G sim card will be integrated into the laptop, which will be called the JioBook. The laptop will likely be sold to the general public within the following three months, according to the sources, after being made available to customers like schools and government institutions starting this month. A 5G-capable version is expected to follow, just like with the JioPhone.
One of the sources told Reuters that this would rival the success of JioPhone.
Since the launch plans have not been made public, the sources declined to give their names. A request for comment was not answered by Jio, the largest telecom provider in India with more than 420 million subscribers.
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According to Counterpoint Research, the JioPhone has been the most popular sub-$100 smartphone in India over the past three quarters, representing a fifth of that market. 9% of the country’s smartphone sales come from this market segment.
The sources stated that JioBook will use the JioOS operating system and that some Microsoft apps will also be available. According to them, Qualcomm chips built on Arm Ltd. technology will be used.
The laptop will compete with a small selection of products from the Indian company Lava, Acer, and Lenovo in that price range.
However, it might encounter some opposition in a nation where laptops running Microsoft Windows are the norm.
“The adoption will face difficulties with user awareness.
Non-Windows (operating system) is also disappointing “Tarun Pathak, a counterpoint analyst, said.
In India, where 14 million laptops are sold annually, HP and Dell currently hold a monopoly on the market. Pathak predicts that the addition of JioBook could increase that market’s size by 15%.
According to one of the sources, Flex, a local contract manufacturer, will produce the JioBook, with Jio hoping to sell “hundreds of thousands” of them by the end of March.
In 2020, Jio raised about $22 billion from international investors including KKR & Co Inc (KKR.N) and Silver Lake. Jio is also marketing the laptop as a substitute for tablets for out-of-office corporate employees.
(This story refiles to fix the third para for clarity)
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