At today’s AGM meeting, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani finally unleashed the much awaited Jio Feature phone made – by, for, and in – India, called the JioPhone. The phone will service 50 crore Indian feature phone users and is being marketed with a tag like ‘India ka Smartphone’.
JioPhone Features and Specifications
The JioPhone will have 4G VoLTE, will support all of India’s 22 regional languages, and can accept voice commands. Also, all of Jio entertainment apps like Jio Music and Jio Cinema are preloaded on the phone. You can also mirror movies and other screen content of your phone screen to a bigger TV screen using JioPhone TV cable that can connect your phone to any TV (even old CRT TVs).
The Jio Feature phone has an alpha numeric keypad, 2.4-inch QVGA display, SD card slot, headphone jack, camera, torch light and FM radio. Long pressing the 5 Key will send distress message (with location information) to emergency contacts.
The hardware is ready for secure mobile payments and Jio will activate NFC and mobile payment on the phone later this year.
JioPhone Availability and Price
The JioPhone itself will be effectively free, but Reliance will collect a refundable 1500 INR fee for it (valid for 3 years). The phone will be available for beta testing starting August 15 and for booking from August 24. The phone will start shipping to those who pre-book starting September 2017.
Tariff plans for JioPhone feature phone
- JioPhone itself will have an effective price of Zero Rupees. That is to say, it will be free.
- Jio will collect a one-time refundable fee of Rs. 1500. You can collect the fee back in 3 years or when you return your phone.
- On the JioPhone voice calls will always be free.
- Feature phone users will get access to unlimited data for Rs. 153 per month.
- Other new Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan plan features will be available to JioPhone users for Rs. 153.
- The JioPhone cable Plan that lets you mirror content on all kinds of TVs will cost Rs. 309 per month.
- Short duration Sachet plans: Rs. 24 for two days, and Rs. 54 for a week.
Reliance Jio AGM July 21 Highlights
- Jio Added 100 million users in 170 days (7 customers per second).
- Has 125 million active customers that use 250 crore minutes of voice and video calls every day.
- Jio consumers alone consume 125 Crore GB of data in India every month.
- Physical distribution, Data affordability, device affordability will be the approach moving forward
- Mukesh Ambani mentioned the upcoming Jio Fiber, but didn’t divulge any important information regarding the same.
