JioPhone, Reliance Jio's ambitious venture to rope in large hordes of new smartphone users from India's hinterlands with a transition phone, has now got what it had skipped—the apps that are most desired by smartphone users.
Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, today announced at Reliance Industries' 41st annual general meeting in Mumbai that JioPhone would now come equipped with YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. The apps will work with voice commands as well which means users can use their voice to play videos. These features will be available to all JioPhone users from August 15 this year.
Last year, Reliance Jio came out with its disruptive ploy—a 4G feature phone, JioPhone. Jio's second wave of disruption after freebies and cheap data targeted the predominantly rural feature phone users who wish to switch to a smartphone but find it expensive. JioPhone, which came at an effective price of Rs 0, rattled the existing players who were likely to lose a big chunk of their low-end voice customers. It was seen to be hitting low-end handset makers as well. However, lack of Facebook, Whatsapp and Youtube apps on JioPhone was seen as a big handicap.
Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, today announced at Reliance Industries' 41st annual general meeting in Mumbai that JioPhone would now come equipped with YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. The apps will work with voice commands as well which means users can use their voice to play videos. These features will be available to all JioPhone users from August 15 this year.
JioPhone 2 features:
- Operating system: KaiOS, same as JioPhone.
- 512MB of RAM and 4GB of ROM
- SD card for expandable storage up to 128GB.
- Display of 2.4QVGA
- 2-megapixel rear camera and VGA front-facing camera
- Backs dual-SIM, LTE, VoLTE, and VoWi-Fi
- Phone supports FM, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and NFC.
- Now supports Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp applications
- Available under monsoon offer. You can replace their older JioPhone for a new JioPhone 2 for Rs 500
Last year, Reliance Jio came out with its disruptive ploy—a 4G feature phone, JioPhone. Jio's second wave of disruption after freebies and cheap data targeted the predominantly rural feature phone users who wish to switch to a smartphone but find it expensive. JioPhone, which came at an effective price of Rs 0, rattled the existing players who were likely to lose a big chunk of their low-end voice customers. It was seen to be hitting low-end handset makers as well. However, lack of Facebook, Whatsapp and Youtube apps on JioPhone was seen as a big handicap.
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( Originally published on Jul 05, 2018 )
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