JioPhone: How Free Handsets Will Change The Telecom Game

After initiating a data revolution among smartphone users, Mukesh Ambani wants to give digital freedom to those at the bottom of the pyramid with JioPhone

- Aveek Datta

WHEN MUKESH AMBANI, CHAIRMAN of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), had said in 2016 that data was the new oil and promised to give Indians gallons of such data at throwaway prices, few would have imagined that a year down the line he would also be giving away free phones. Yet, that is exactly what he did on July 21, at the oil-to retail and telecom conglomerate’s 40th annual general meeting (AGM).

In September 2016, when Jio launched high-speed 4G telephony services in the country at rock-bottom prices, it notched up 125 million subscribers (of which 100 million migrated to Jio’s paid services after the inaugural offers of free data expired) in 10 months. But that shakeout in the telecom market was mostly in the universe of smartphone users. This time, Jio has trained its sights on the larger section of telecom subscribers in India (500 million out of 782 million users) who can’t afford smartphones and still use the traditional feature phones.